


so long as our minds meet

by whataboutateakettle



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Romantic Comedy, Alternate Universe - You've Got Mail Fusion, Background Femslash, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, M/M, Pen Pals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 35,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27399679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whataboutateakettle/pseuds/whataboutateakettle
Summary: What will he say today, I wonder. I turn on my computer, I wait impatiently as it boots up. I go on-line, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: You’ve got mail. I hear nothing, not even a sound on the streets of New York, just the beat of my own heart. I have mail. From you.// A You've Got Mail AU.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 72
Kudos: 176





	1. fall

**Author's Note:**

> I'd been tossing around some ideas to dip my toe into the Old Guard fanfic market and decided, as one does, that the best way to start was a 35k You’ve Got Mail AU. So. Here we are.
> 
> This is very much set in the 1997 and 1998. In order to keep the specific joie de vivre of the AU, I purposefully avoided any and all period-typical attitudes regarding homophobia, misogyny and racism, most of which do unfortunately exist in the original film.
> 
> Title is taken from _The Shop Around The Corner_ (1940), which You've Got Mail is based on. Credit for any recognizable lines goes to Nora Ephron whom I ripped off quite a bit in this one.
> 
> All four parts are fully written, and will be updated every few days. And I can be found on tumblr [here](https://whataboutateakettle.tumblr.com/post/633942306010152960/so-long-as-our-minds-meet-a-joexnicky-youve-got).

* * *

Joe wakes to the piercing sounds of a truck reversing on the street below his apartment. There is something to be said about the soundtrack of New York City in the morning, but he’s still too asleep to say it. Someone on the street swears loudly, though it’s unclear whether it’s related to the truck. He groans, reluctantly opens one eye towards his alarm clock, red numbers telling him he’s only got seven minutes before his alarm goes off anyway. The world comes back to him in slow waves, as he blinks both eyes open against the light and props himself up onto his elbow. Across the room his computer sits idly on his desk. The corner of his mouth quirks up into a smile as he feels himself drawn to the machine. It’s ridiculous, _he’s_ ridiculous.

He wouldn’t turn it on until he’s ready for the day, he reasons with himself. Well, at least until he’s had breakfast. He can hear his mother’s voice in his head _“Yusuf, my love, you can finish reading after you’ve brushed your teeth, okay?”_ It was a dance they would do every morning and every night.

He hauls himself out of bed, makes his way into the kitchen, bare feet heavy on the wooden floor. He fills his Moka pot with water, then coffee, sets it on the stove with a light clink before digging into the fridge to see what he can have for breakfast. He’s got... eggs. Good. And mushrooms that probably should have been used yesterday. He kicks the fridge door closed with a thud.

He’s done chopping the mushrooms as he hears the pleasant bubbling of his coffee being ready, so he takes the pot off the stove, replaces it hastily with a pan, drops in a little bit of oil with a hiss, a bit of salt and pepper and paprika and the mushrooms to brown up.

When it’s ready, he eats small bites of his eggs standing up, as he looks back down the other end of the apartment towards his bedroom, towards the computer sitting on the desk. The sooner he checks, the sooner he’ll be able to jump in the shower, he bargains. Ridiculous.

There’s a one-two clink of the fork hitting his empty bowl and the empty bowl being placed in the sink, and then he takes his half-finished coffee and sits down in front of the black screen, full of possibilities on this sunny fall morning.

The fan in his laptop whirrs gently as it turns on. Maybe he hasn’t responded, Joe allows himself to think. It’s less anxiety and more self-preservation, preparing himself for the chance that his inbox is totally empty, that he won’t start his day off with words that he’s taken to carrying around in his pocket like a favourite handkerchief. He clicks and the room fills with the harsh static of the dial-up connecting to the Internet. Truly magnificent, when he allows himself to consider it. This little wire plugged into his computer means he can speak to anyone in the entire world, means he can speak to –

“ _You’ve got mail_ ,” his computer announces and Joe exhales. There is it. One message, waiting to be read.

From: NYGen  
To: Literario  
Subject: Tostato

I had a dog when I was growing up, I don’t think I mentioned that to you before. His name was Tostato, cleverly named by me because he was the colour of well-toasted bread. He was a Labrador and had more energy than I had ever seen in another living creature. I remember running after him all summer. But when it turned to fall, it was like Tostato knew that play time was over. He used to curl up next to me on a large green cushion as I did my homework after school. Sometimes I think he was truly my best friend. He was there for the good times, bad times, and all those in between. I felt like I could tell him anything. Now, I feel I can tell you anything. Is that ridiculous of me? I think of Tostato as the leaves change colour every year. Actually, New York in the fall makes me want to buy school supplies, still. You told me once you like to draw. I think I would send you a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address. On the other hand, this not knowing has its charms, don’t you think?

Joe plays with his lip, chest warm with feeling. “Tostato,” he rolls the name around on his tongue before slipping it into the back of his mind, alongside all the other facts he’s collected about this strange, magnificent, mystery person. A person who somehow has the ability to make Joe’s day simply by recounting their own, seemingly trivial observations holding so much weight that Joe feels pulled towards them like gravity.

From: Literario  
To: NYGen  
Subject: Re:Tostato

Here’s something ridiculous: I feel as though our notes are all part of a conversation we’ve been having for centuries. Sometimes I even pretend that we’re the oldest and dearest of friends – as opposed to what we actually are, two people who don’t know each other’s names who met in a chat room where we both claimed we’d never been before. Sometimes it feels like I’m not pretending. 

What will he say today, I wonder. I turn on my computer, I wait impatiently as it boots up. I go on-line, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: You’ve got mail. I hear nothing, not even a sound on the streets of New York, just the beat of my own heart. I have mail. From you.

* * *

* * *

Booker is talking. Booker is telling him something important. Something to do with the... electrician? Perhaps. Or with the shelves. They were due to be installed today, right?

“Yes, very good,” Nicky nods, only faintly aware that he’s slipped into Italian as he follows Booker through the construction area. This is not the first construction site he’s walked through, and he’s always amazed how this, all tarp and power tools and health hazards can turn into an actual real-life bookstore. This is one part of the whole thing that he does appreciate, the creation of a space out if nothing.

“We also got a $50,000 fine for construction workers peeing off the roof,” Booker says, and Nicky does hear the words, he _does_. He just doesn’t really take in their meaning, or even really their sound.

He nods again, hoping the same trick will work twice. “Of course.”

Booker stops walking, suddenly enough that Nicky actually takes a few more steps before he realises and turns back. “And I’m getting remarried to Marie Antoinette,” he says, in French as he tends to do when he is exasperated at something, usually at Nicky.

Nicky nods a third time, pats Booker on the shoulder. “Great. Wonderful. Oh, is the electrician still coming today?”

“I just told you he hit a deer. I _knew_ you weren’t listening to me,” Booker grumbles, gestures for Nicky to continue walking ahead.

“You’re right I wasn’t,” Nicky admits, “I hear nothing. Not a sound on the city streets, just the beat of my own heart.” He pauses. “I think that’s how it goes, something like that, at least.”

Booker stops again, eyes carefully on Nicky as he grabs at his elbow and pulls him back. “Did you get laid?”

“What?”

“Oh come on! Was it one of those guys I set you up with last week?”

Booker had indeed given Nicky four separate telephone numbers last week, and Nicky hadn’t called any of them. And Nicky was not quite ready to explain why exactly he hadn’t done so. He was single, definitely, dreadfully so, and yet he felt connected, as if by wires, to a mystery poet he had met in a chat room.

How does one even begin to explain that. That these emails, anonymous exchanges really, somehow always have a way of discerning the most specific feelings, like they have an ear pressed to Nicky’s heart at all times. That this correspondence feels like the one space in his life that isn’t dictated by charts and predictions and shareholders.

“We should announce ourselves to the neighbourhood, let them know we are coming,” Nicky says instead, hands waving to emphasise his point.His brother looks at him like he knows he’s trying to change the subject, but also, if anyone can sympathise with evasive tactics, it’s him.

“Do you want them to vandalize the site before we even open? No, they’ll be lining up to protest like we’re Paris in the sixties.”

There’s a beat, a weight that settles between them of history and understanding and difference. Nicky wasn’t even born in the late sixties, and Booker had just watched his mother pass away and his father, their father, pull himself away from the family and throw himself into a book business in her honour. Celeste Le Livre was a lover of books and her son, while Giovanni Di Genova was a lover of business and Celeste. And thus Genova Books was born. And now here they were. Nicky sighs.

“I know, I know. We are the _big bad_ chain store. But we can show them that Genova Books really is a love letter to the community. All this space and the discounts and the armchairs and our cappuccino –“

“Look at you, Nicolò,” Booker interrupts him, “You can’t even say it with a straight face.”

Nicky clenches and unclenches his jaw, puts on the face he got very good at in business meetings. “No. They may hate us at first, but we will get there in the end.”

* * *

* * *

Nile is waiting outside the store, hands shoved in her pockets, knees bouncing gently like she's trying to keep warm. Surely it’s not that cold, he doesn’t feel cold at all.

“Morning, Joe,” she calls out as he crosses the street towards her.

“Good morning, Nile,” He grins. “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it a beautiful day?” He bends down to unlock the metal grate in front of the door.

“I guess,” Nile says, sounding unconvinced.

Behind them there’s the sound of a car braking suddenly, tires screeching on concrete, a chorus of car horns.

“Don’t you just love New York in the fall?” He muses, unlocking the door and stepping inside, the bell chiming above his head. He inhales deeply; this place has smelled exactly the same since he was six years old, even as the furniture and the wallpaper and the books had changed, the smell never did. He heads over behind the counter, grabbing the first thing he can reach and holding it up to his face. “You just can’t beat it.”

“That’s a stapler,” Nile deadpans, now standing on the other side of the counter staring at him like he’s lost his head. Maybe he has. “What is going on with you?”

“Nothing,” Joe supplies. He puts the stapler down slowly, takes his satchel off his shoulder and drops it onto the ground.

Nile is still staring at him, “Did you go on a date?”

A laugh escapes before he can stop it. He picks up a stack of books he'd left on the counter last night and heads over to the history section, eyeing the shelves carefully for where he can put them. “Me? A date? No. No. Hey, do you think we can get those mailers out this week?”

“Oh,” Nile starts, taken off guard by the change in topic, “Yes. I just have this paper due Friday and – _wait_. What is going on?!”

Joe reminds himself to check on Nile’s workload. She always accepts every shift he asks her to take, and it can’t be easy to juggle that with her college work as well. And with her family back in Chicago... Joe worries. He reminds himself to invite her over for dinner sometime soon.

“Nothing. Nothing, nothing at all.” Joe says, and realises that the books he had just shelved haven’t even been priced yet. That’s why they were on the counter. He scoops them back into his arms, and goes to move back to where he came from.

Nile appears in front of him, an immovable force when she wants to be. “You know I’m just going to stand here until you tell me,” She says, gaze set on him like a hawk. If Joe ever needed back up in a fight he wouldn’t think twice before calling her.

“I’ve been exchanging... messages with someone. Online,” he says, suddenly unable to meet her gaze. He's staring down at the history books in his hands. _An Epic History of Art in America_. Why did they order so many of these?

“You mean like cybersex?”

“What?” Joe blanches, he hadn’t even considered – well, it’s not like it had _never_ crossed his mind, but – No. _No_. “Of course not! It’s not like that. We just email. It’s really nothing.”

“Where’d you meet him?” Nile asks, clearly suspicious of the whole thing.

Well, if he can't go through he can definitely go around, he thinks and turns on his heels to move around the stand of children's poetry books and back towards the counter. “Oh, I can’t even remember...” The whole topic twists itself uncomfortably in his stomach.

“ _Joe._ ”

He sighs, places the books down and rubs a hand against his face. Somehow she’s already right behind him, leaning against the countertop.

“You’re going to think I’m pathetic.”

Nile just raises a sharp eyebrow at him. It's not like him to be evasive and they both know it.

“Okay, okay. On my birthday I wandered into this “over 30” chatroom. As a joke! And he was there and we started chatting.”

"That was months ago!" She says first, and then pauses, “What do you talk about?”

The first messages they had exchanged had been about the weather in New York that weekend, so simple and inconsequential and yet Joe had been so thoroughly charmed by it. It really was inexplicable.

He shakes his head, “Oh, books and music, and how much we both love New York. It’s all harmless, harmless stuff. Meaningless really... You know, bouquets of sharpened pencils.”

“ _What_?”

“Don’t worry, we don’t talk about anything personal. I don’t even know his name or what he does or where he lives exactly. Really, I could stop writing to him at any time.”

“You know he could be the next person to walk into the store, right? ”

Joe opens his mouth. He does know, in fact he's thought about it quite a bit. There's something tantalizing about the fact that they could interact without even knowing it. Sometimes, when someone particularly enchanting comes into the store, Joe allows himself to imagine them at their computer writing him musings about strange dreams or their favourite foods growing up or the way they felt when they first saw snow.

“I –” He starts, but is cut off by the bell and both their heads whip suddenly towards the door.

Andy walks in carrying a large coffee in one hand, stack of manuscripts in the other, sunglasses hiding her eyes. Knowing her she’s had a late night or perhaps an early morning.

“What’s up with you two?” she asks, chin nodding towards them just standing there as though they're rooted to the spot.

“We’re just talking about cybersex,” Nile says, words flowing out of her like she can’t stop them. Joe reaches over and whacks her shoulder with a paperback.

Andy nods thoughtfully, “I tried that once, kept getting a busy signal,” she says, otherwise unfazed. She walks around them and heads towards the backroom, where she spends most of her time.

Andy is... an enigma, and a life-long confidante. Joe’s not even quite sure how old she is, because he feels like she’s been an adult for his whole life. She was a friend of his mother’s, he knows that much, knows that she worked in the shop while it was still getting off the ground. She still works in the shop, sort of, mostly she sits in the back,reading manuscripts and offering sage advice. Sometime while Joe was in middle school, Andy developed a reputation and a network, though no one is quite sure why or how. But if there was someone in the book business you wanted to meet, chances are Andy either knows them or knows someone who does, And that someone probably owes her a favour. Mostly though, she just comes and goes as she pleases, like some sort of semi-domesticated wildcat.

Joe turns back from watching Andy step heavily through the store in her combat boots and spots two young kids, regular customers, standing at the door waving through the glass. He hadn't flipped the door sign over, it seems. He throws Nile a grin, and goes to open the door, and start the day.

* * *

* * *

Their father’s office has a view of the entire city. The windows take up two whole walls and Nicky feels like if he gets close enough to the glass he could just fall out, so instead he stays in the chair opposite his father’s desk, which is just short of comfortable. Booker’s lounging on the couch nearby, some new mohair number, which Nicky avoids because he sat in it once and half the couch stayed on his suit. He doesn’t offer Booker the courtesy of a warning.

Anyway, Nicky suspects that his father is sleeping with his interior designer, which he wouldn’t have an issue with, but he got a little tired of introducing new members to the family after the fifth wife.

“Oh did you hear,” Booker pops up on the couch, arm resting over the back, “City Books on 23rd, it’s going under.”

“Isn’t that’s Quỳnh’s store?” Nicky asks. He hadn’t heard, but it’s not exactly a surprise, not in this day and age.

“Yep,” Booker affirms, popping the p.

“I haven’t spoken to her in years.” He’d known Quỳnh even before he’d been completely subsumed by the family business. He used to go into her store when he had just started college in the city, 18 years old and fresh from Italy, trying to make friends in the City. He never did do a particularly good job at that. Quỳnh had always been nice to him.

“Don’t think she will want to hear from you now,” Booker muses.

“Perhaps we can buy out her inventory, some of it at least. Give her some sort of life raft rather than just leaving her to drown.”

“Christ,” Booker sighs, “Who would have thought bookstores were a bloodsport.”

Their father’s assistant comes in, and Booker stands up, starts brushing the couch off his suit, but she only tells them that he’s five minutes away, which means he wouldn’t be there for at least another ten.

“Oh by the way, can you take the kids on Friday afternoon?” Booker asks, as he walks around the massive mahogany desk to find the lint roller.

“What? Why?”

“I have a meeting, and I can’t bear to ask Sophie, she already thinks I can’t handle them by myself. She’ll never let me have them for the holidays.”

 _Can_ you handle them by yourself, Nicky thinks, but doesn’t say. Because it’s cruel, because he knows Booker is trying, Booker’s stopped drinking, Booker is a new man. “You’re lucky I like your kids more than I like you.”

Booker grins at him, thanks him in Italian, which he always does when he wants to butter him up. “Just for a couple of hours and then I’ll take you all out for dinner.”

* * *

* * *

From: NYGen  
To: Literario  
Subject: Family 

My brother asked me to watch his kids on Friday. They’re great kids, their parents got divorced a year ago and I feel like they’re more mature about it than I ever was. I guess there’s another little fact for you. I come from a broken home. Isn't it strange that that’s the term we use? Personally I think my brother’s life was much more broken while he was still married, for a myriad of reasons I won’t go into. Divorce, perhaps, is the thing that made him whole again.

* * *

* * *

From: Literario  
To: NYGen  
Subject: A poem 

There's a line from one of my favorite poets that I've been drawn to recently: “In a room the size of loneliness, my heart’s the size of love”. Isn’t it astonishing? Novels and novels have been written on the subject and yet the poet manages to say it so perfectly in two lines. Perhaps we don’t talk about it enough, loneliness and love, and how the two can be so intertwined. I never felt lonelier than I did in the middle of my last relationship, though that’s far behind me now. And though one might say I’m at my most lonely right now, I do feel open to love. The rest of that verse continues: “It contemplates its simple pretexts for happiness: the beauty of the flowers’ wilting in a vase, the sapling you planted in our garden, and the canaries song - the size of a window.” Doesn’t that just make you feel something?

* * *

* * *

The building itself has always been there, looming large over the intersection. But now Joe feels as though it’s grown ten stories, casting its shadow over streets normally basked in sunlight on a morning like this. There have been rumors milling around for months about what was being built here, and yet now Joe feels foolish and naive for not having seen it coming. Perhaps it's the logo of the roman soldier, the large G and B imposed behind it in bright blood red. Joe’s not sure it even makes sense.

“It’s an overstocked warehouse, full of ignorant sales people who haven’t read a book in their lives,” Andy says carefully and he knows it’s mostly for his benefit.

“But they discount,” Nile adds, sounding a little defeated. And he hates it, he hates that she sounds like that, he hates that Andy's forced to offer him weak placations, he hates that he’s worried about this. His store has been here for 42 years, it’s not about go under on his watch, not because of a stupid chain store. No, he’s not about to let Genova Books ruin his mother’s legacy.

“They already have a store downtown, on 17th. I don’t see why they needed to come and desecrate the Upper West Side as well.”

“No, you know, this is a good thing," He says finally, feeling both Andy and Nile turn towards him. "Genova Books can offer their discounts all they want, we offer something much more special. Our customers know that.”

Andy's hand lands on his shoulder, squeezing gently. He wishes it didn't feel quite so condolatory.

* * *

* * *

“Can we go in there, Nicky?” Jean-Pierre asks, although it’s almost redundant as he’s pulling on Nicky’s hand with far more force than a five year old should possess. Nicky shouldn't have let him have the whole ice cream to himself.

“Only if Isabelle wants to go as well,” He reasons, buying himself some time. He gazes at the window of the store, bold, gold lettering reading “The Shop Around The Corner” and in front of that a sandwich board announcing storybook time has just started. They're just around the corner from his office, he thinks, but this is probably better than getting them to draw on printer paper. Anyway, he's pretty sure he's heard of this place.

“Mm-hmm!” Isabelle nods eagerly, and so Nicky lets himself be dragged into the store by two children who don’t even reach his hip.

A small bell chimes as the front door opens, and Nicky is almost surprised to see how crowded it is inside. He’s been told, by his father, by his business advisors, by the news, that these small independent bookstores were drowning, yet this one seems to be thriving.

“Go sit, enjoy,” Nicky whispers, nodding over to the corner of the store where a flock of children are sitting in a circle around a young woman. She’s reading animatedly from a book, smiling every so often as a determined two-year-old pulls at her braids. Parents and nannies seem scattered throughout the store, some sitting on the floor, most of them are listening intently to the young woman read. Nicky glances around, taking in shelves and displays of interesting titles. His eyes eventually land on a man sitting behind the counter. He’s... well, he’s very attractive, focusing intently on whatever his hand is writing where Nicky can’t see. He’s also listening to the woman read, glancing over at her every so often with a soft familial gaze. A customer goes up and Nicky watches as the man breaks into a warm grin. Surely this is just good customer service, but Nicky swears he can feel the man’s smile in his bones.

He forces himself to start browsing the books if only to avoid staring like a fool, eventually picking up a one he’s been meaning to read anyway, a book of poetry recommended to him by Literario. He starts reading, though he keeps getting distracted by glancing back at the counter. He’s sketching something, Nicky decides, by the movement of his arm, and he stops whenever a customer comes over to pay for something, and every time the man greets them with the same smile. Nicky fights the urge to see it up close, a fight he knows he’s going to lose.

He expects Isabelle and Jean-Pierre to want to leave immediately after storytime time is over, but instead Nicky watches them talk to the women with the braids, excitedly recapping their favorite parts. Soon she's explaining the characters in a series of books and Isabelle looks so enchanted, Nicky suspects they’re going to end up buying the whole set. Meanwhile JP is nose-deep in a dinosaur pop-up book.

“Uh, I think I’m taking all of those,” Nicky smiles awkwardly and gestures to both kids before reaching into his back pocket for his wallet.

“Your children are very lucky to have a dad that supports their reading,” the man smiles at him. The same blinding grin he’s offered every customer. Except now that it’s turned on Nicky, he’s pretty sure he feels something short-circuit.

“I-” he chokes, he absolutely chokes on his own tongue.

“He’s not my dad!” Isabelle pops up next to him like a Whac-A-Mole. “Nicky’s my uncle.”

“Oh, I see,” the man smiles again, his eyes darting back to meet Nicky’s, and Nicky is unsure if there is a twinkle in them or if he is just seeing things now. “Well, you are very lucky to have such a lovely uncle.”

“This – this is your store?” Nicky stammers out.

“It is. Joe. Joe al-Kaysani. And you are?”

“Uhh.. Nicky. Just call me Nicky.”

“Well, thank you, _Nicky_ , for bringing these lovely treasures in today. Would you guys like to come back for another storytime next week?” The woman who had been speaking to Isabelle joins Joe behind the counter.

“Uh-huh!” Isabelle nods with a grin, and the woman grins back. JP gives her a thumbs-up from the floor, still clutching the pop-up book.

“See, this is why we aren’t going under. Our customers are loyal.” She says to Joe.

“Oh,” Joe looks a little embarrassed, eyes widening as he looks back at Nicky to explain.. “They’re opening a Genova Books around the corner.”

“Genova Books! That’s -” Isabelle starts, but Nicky slams a hand over her mouth.

“That’s near the Starbucks, right?” He says, hoping it was smooth enough to pass for nonchalance. It would be too uncomfortable for all of them if Joe knew who he was, not just an innocent customer but his competitor. “Isabelle, perhaps you can go help JP read that pop-up book over at the table?”

Joe waits a moment for Isabelle to leave. “I know people are very excited by a new chain store, but the world is not driven by discounts, believe me," He's placing Nicky's books in a large paper bag, not even looking at him as he vents. "I’ve been in business forever. I started helping my mother here after school when I was six years old. I used to watch her talk to every person who walked through that door and she wasn't just selling books. She was helping people discover the world. And sometimes even themselves. The words we read become a part of us in a way that business-men obsessed with money just don’t understand. I - I guess I’ve gotten carried away.” Joe smiles at him a bit sheepishly, cheeks darkening ever so slightly and Nicky’s awestruck by the way his eyes crinkle at the corners. And ashamed. And absolutely trapped in this conversation.

He’s staring at him now, he knows, unsure of what to say, wishing Joe had ranted for longer just to see his black curls bounce gently when he shakes his head. “You have. But you made me feel -”

Joe’s looking at him earnestly, and Nicky decides then that there is no way he can let him know who he is. Even if they never meet again, which they won’t, Nicky suddenly can’t bear for those eyes to look at him with anything except the warmth they are offering him now.

“That’ll be $73.70,” The woman next to Joe says then, pulling him out of his thoughts..

“How much?” Nicky’s eyes widen.

“$73.70 in total.”

Nicky's first thought is that it’s outrageously expensive, and then he scolds himself for it; remembers that he hasn’t actually purchased a book himself in years, a perk of being in the bookstore business.

He hands a card over to her, who puts it through and then there’s a moment of silence, Nicky looks over at JP and Isabelle, not surprised to find JP trying to climb a small stack of books, though not successfully enough that he needs to be worried. He smiles briefly to himself, and turns back only to find that Joe is looking at him, gaze steady, like he was studying him.

“Oh, uh-” Nicky’s flustered all over again.

“It was nice to meet you, Nicky,” Joe says, holding his card out to him.

Nicky takes it back, slides it back into his wallet, willing his cheeks not turn as red as he imagines they are. “Yes, it was very nice to meet you too.”

Joes smiles softly, and for a moment Nicky swears it's not the same grin he’s offered every other customer, but it's only a moment and then he just grins widely. “And it was great meeting you both as well.” He says to Isabelle and JP, leaning over the counter.

“Yes, well. Thank you, I’m sure we’ll be back,” Nicky says, the lie bitter on his tongue, and he just reaches the door when he hears Joe again.

“Wait!”

He turns, feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the whole thing.

“You forgot your books!” Joe laughs, holding up a large paper bag.

“Nicky!” JP admonishes him, laughing, and Isabelle goes back to take the bag from Joe.

“I have to do everything in this family,” she says with a weary dramatic sigh that Nicky knows she learnt from her mother.

Joe laughs loudly, it reaches his eyes and the sound burrows deep into Nicky’s brain, and that’s the last Nicky sees of him.

* * *

* * *

To: Literario  
From: NYGen  
Subject: Coffee 

I was in a coffee shop this morning, observing those ordering ahead of me and I’ve come to a conclusion that I hope is not too controversial. People who order sweet coffee don’t actually want to be drinking coffee. They just do it because they think they should be drinking coffee, that it will give them some air of importance or prestige. What they want is a hot chocolate or a juice of some kind. They order something that claims to be in the vicinity of coffee but is really a cup of sugar and flavoring with some added caffeine. Real coffee should have as few additives as possible, with minimal milk and sugar. A good espresso, for example, is as close as you can get to a hit of pure energy. Even a decaf espresso does something for the soul. 

* * *

* * *

Andy is already in the store when Joe arrives that morning, having run from awning to awning trying to dodge the rain because he forgot his umbrella at home. By the time he arrives, he’s already annoyed, and then a little dismayed at his own inability to handle a little bit of bad weather. Anyway, he hadn’t slept well either.

Andy’s in the back on the computer, screen lit up with green numbers.

“Good morning,” Joe says tentatively, though he’s not sure it is, really. He hangs up his coat on the hook by the doorframe and stands there, shaking droplets out of his wet hair. The store feels colder than usual; he makes a note to check the thermostat, but thinks maybe it's just him.

Andy hums, non-committal. She glances over her shoulder before she looks at Joe.

“What’s the verdict?” He asks.

“They’ve been open one week and we're down $1200 on this week last year,” Andy says, tapping something on the keyboard that highlights one row of numbers on the screen. Joe isn’t really interested in reading it closely.

“I mean, that could be a fluke.”

Andy sighs, and for a moment she looks genuinely worried, which is an emotion she tends to keep hidden from people. The last time Joe remembers her being openly concerned was when his mother was sick. Andy had been there just like she always has, taking care of the store, bringing them food while Joe was at home taking care of her. She rarely talks about her friendship with his mother, but whatever reasons she has for looking out for him, for his family, is a blessing he doesn't ever take for granted.

“Look I already know someone who lost their store because of these assholes. I don’t want the same thing to happen to another person -”

“We’ll be okay, Andy.” He has to say it, because he needs himself to believe it. The front door chimes, and a moment later Nile calls out, shaking her umbrella before she walks all the way in.

Andy and Joe look at each other and Andy reaches over to click out of the window with all the numbers.

“Morning Nile,” Joe answers, heading back to the front to greet her properly. The rest of his conversation with Andy could wait. Or hopefully, it wouldn't have to happen at all.

* * *

* * *

Joe winds slowly through the crowd of people, trying not to feel offended that Andy dragged him here and then proceeded to abandon him in favor of speaking to Quỳnh in some far away corner of this obnoxiously large apartment. He’s hesitant to find them however, doesn’t want to interrupt, doesn’t know how to look Quỳnh in the eye when she’s just experienced one of his worst fears. He’s worried his very presence would serve as a brutal reminder of what she’s lost and what he hasn’t.

“Remind me again why I’m here,” he’d asked Andy in the elevator on the way up, tugging on the suit jacket he's had no reason to wear recently.

“Because Copley has connections. And resources. And even though I don’t really trust the guy I think he could help us,” Andy had said, giving him a look that reminded him she does tend to be right about these kinds of things, as much as he hated to admit it.

Andy is concerned about the store, which she has good reason to be. The store is part of Joe, it’s in his bones, in his blood, but Andy’s been part of its life longer than he has. He remembers stories of Andy stacking books while his mother sat, pregnant with him on the stool behind the counter. Andy thinks he needs to be more known to the book community, to make some friends in high places, so to speak. And well, if he’s going to do that, this would be the place. It feels like anyone who ever written or read a single word in New York is here and Joe is overwhelmed. Something to drink, maybe, would help. At least it would be something to do.

The party - _Soireé?_ \- is catered, there are even servers walking around offering people hors d'oeuvres. The drinks however, are located at the bar, which also has a bartender, Joe’s not quite sure why he can’t just serve himself a drink but okay.

There’s another person, broad-shouldered in a gray suit, standing next to the bar already, his back angled toward Joe, and Joe hovers awkwardly to the left until the bartender looks at him.

“Hi. Just, uh, one of those please,” he says pointing to the bottle right behind her. She nods, and drops some ice in a glass before reaching for the bottle.

Joe glances over, expects to smile awkwardly at the other guest while he waits. The other guest who’s just dropped an extra ice cube into his glass of whiskey before turning around. At least Joe think’s it's whiskey, he’s not well-acquainted with the stuff.

“Oh,” Joe says, more to himself, then more outwardly, “Hello!”

The man looks at him blankly for a moment. “Oh, hi,” he says eventually, quite tersely, like Joe had interrupted him in something important. Joe’s just kind of relieved to see a semi-familiar face. Nicky, he’s pretty sure the name was Nicky. And well, if Joe had thought he was attractive wearing an ill-fitted navy windbreaker in his store, seeing him tonight in a tailored suit is... something else.

The bartender holds out his drink, and Joe reaches for it, not taking his eyes off Nicky. “Thanks. Hi again,” Joe says, “Do you remember me from the bookstore?”

“Of course I remember you,” Nicky laughs awkwardly, sidesteps around Joe to get to the other end of the bar where there is a stack of napkins. He grabs a handful, more than he needs and Joe watches as he puts a couple back, folds the rest underneath his glass, already wet from the condensation.

“How are you niece and nephew doing?” Joe asks, and Nicky’s still looking down at the napkins.

“They’re good, thank you,” Nicky says, smiles, and then actually looks up at Joe, their eyes meeting. And okay, Joe knows he’s no stranger to romanticising things, but he’s pretty sure his stomach does the same flip it did when they met in his store. His eyes are blue, reminding him of the sea in both colour and depth, and Joe has an urge to sketch them, to sketch the whole face. And then Nicky blinks, turns half away from Joe. “Well, I better get back to my -”

“Nicky, it’s Nicky right?” Joe blurts out, trying to prolong the conversation, if you can even call it that at this point..

Nicky looks back at him ever so briefly, “And you are Joe,” he states bluntly, and then just walks away. Joe gapes a little, even looks back at the bartender, who has either managed to ignore them entirely or was determined not to care that Joe had just had the world’s most awkward interaction. By the time he looks back, Nicky has disappeared into the crowd.

Joe frowns, takes a sip of his drink, unable to reason through what has just happened. He doesn’t think he’s given Nicky any reason to dislike him, not said anything inappropriate. Maybe he’s just having a bad evening, in which case Joe could relate. He takes a sip of his drink and decides to head back into the fray.

He’s passing through an archway lined with books, and really, if he wasn’t so uncomfortable, he would take more time to appreciate Copley’s apartment for what it really was, a magnificent library, when he feels a hand on his shoulder stopping him.

A woman who looks vaguely familiar but he can’t tell whether it’s from something specific or that she just has the essence of a wealthy older woman from the Upper West Side, shakes her head at him. “I cannot believe you were speaking to Nicky Di Genova.”

Joe thinks for a moment that a floor falls out from under him, and his whole body tenses.. “Nicky... Di Genova?” He repeats.

“Nicky Di Genova.” She affirms.

Joe’s throat goes dry, and he struggles to make out actual words. Nicky. “As in...”

“As in, he’s gonna take over everything.” The woman says, and shakes her head again before walking away from him, seemingly content to leave Joe in shock. His stomach flips again, though this time he feels like he's going to be sick.

* * *

Joe finds him again, circling the food table like a predator stalking his prey. He looks so arrogant, standing there like he owns the place, like he’s got more right to be there than any other invited guest. Joe can’t believe he didn’t see this all before.

“Your last name is Genova,” he blurts out, still standing several feet and three platters of canapés away from him.

Nicky looks at him. Or rather he glances at him sideways like he can’t even be bothered to turn his head. “ _Di_ Genova,” he says.

Joe’s head is swimming, with rage, with regret. He smiled at this man, he _flirted_ with this man, perhaps not well, but that is neither here nor there. “I didn’t realise you were – I didn’t know -” He stumbles, not sure which sentence to finish first.

“ _I didn’t know who you were with_ ,” Nicky says in an exaggerated accent, amused smile on his lips.

“What?”

Nicky sighs, and finally, finally turns to look at Joe properly, “It’s from The Godfather.”

The Godfather? What is that even supposed to mean? “This is all a joke to you,” Joe points a finger at him. “Why were you even in my store anyway? Were you spying on me?”

“I was there because I was spending the day with my niece and nephew – you remember, I’m sure,” Nicky says, picking up a small plate and loading it with mini quiches. Joe wants to tell you you're not supposed to take that many, but he’s still talking. "You have a charming store Joe, really. And though you are full of your own virtue, you are inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. You sell, what, $350,000 worth of books a year.”

“How do you know that?”

Nicky smiles at him, and it's smug and condescending.“I’m in the book business.”

“No, I’m in the book business, " He counters. What the Di Genovas do can’t barely compare.

“Of course,” Nicky nods, “And we _are_ the book business.”

Joe feels another rush of anger and takes a step closer to Nicky, ready to chew him out completely.

“What?” Nicky says, challenging him, eyes steely.

“Hi,” a voice suddenly appears from beside him, “I’m Andy.”

“Nicky Di Genova,” Nicky smiles, eyes barely leaving Joe.

“Yes, I know, What I don’t know is how you even sleep at night.”

Joe can tell just from her voice what kind of look she's giving him right now. The kind of look that would send most men scampering with their tails between their legs. Nicky sighs again, like he’s simply tired of responding to people who are so clearly beneath him. Then his gaze gets taken by something behind them both and Joe is sure he sees a momentary crack in the cocky, condescending veneer. “Hello Quỳnh,” he says, voice softer than before.

“Nicolò,” Quỳnh says, appearing now next to Andy. Nicolò, Joe turns over in his mind. It makes sense, they are Italian afterall. But it’s a soft name, softer than someone like Nicky Di Genova deserves.

“I am sorry about City Books. I had fond memories there,” Nicky say then, and shares a look with Quỳnh that seems heavy with history. He hadn’t even known that Quỳnh and Nicky knew each other.

“And yet you dug the grave anyway,” Andy spits out as Quỳnh doesn’t say anything.

“Mr. Di Genova,” Joe says, finding his tongue again, “I am so glad I finally met you properly, so I never have to make the same mistake again.” And then Andy pulls him away by his sleeve.

* * *

* * *

He quoted The Godfather.

He doesn’t even _like_ The Godfather. Why did he say that? Why did he say any of it? A jagged, desperate line of thought that had been running through Nicky’s head for the past two hours as he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. At least the yelling in his head seems to be drowning out the ticking clock on his bedroom wall.

He hadn’t particularly been looking forward to Copley’s event, as dry as they always are. But whatever way he had expected the evening to go, it was not that.

He remembers the first moment he saw Joe enter the party like it’s imprinted on the back of his eyelids. He'd been talking to someone whose name he can't even remember now and then Joe walked in, with Andy, wearing a shirt and suit jacket and it was so unlike his comfortable knitted sweater from the store, but the shirt was open at the collar, exposing his neck. Nicky allowed himself to watch as Joe greeted Copley, just for a few seconds, and then remembered his earlier promise, that he couldn't let Joe know who he really is.

God, he should have just left then and there, rather than making an absolute fool of himself when Joe cornered him at the bar, and then later. Later, when Joe had confronted him, forehead furrowed, anger in his eyes, Nicky heart's had dropped all the way to the floor, unable to even look at him.

He feels ashamed that before he could even take a breath he'd resorted to brutal insults. He regrets it, almost as much as he regrets whatever evil image Joe now has in his head of who he is. He'd been completely misunderstood, and yet he'd done nothing to fix it.

He sighs, knowing that he wouldn’t get to sleep anytime soon. Not with this on his conscience. Instead, he gets out of bed and sits down in front of his computer, loading up his emails.

Is it inappropriate, to share feelings like this with someone you don’t know? Perhaps, but also Nicky feels like this person knows him better than most people, that they see a side of him not open to the public. And anyway, it's the only thing Nicky feels like doing right now: talking to the one person in the city who seems to understand him.

From: NYGen  
To: Literario  
Subject: Regret

Do you ever feel like you’ve become the worst version of yourself? All of a sudden a pandora’s box springs open and all the secret hateful parts of yourself – your arrogance, your condescension, your cruelty - just come spilling out. Someone provoked me recently and instead of being the bigger person and just moving on; I attacked with a laser-like precision, as though my own life depended on it. Of course, I’m sure you have no idea what I’m talking about. 

* * *

From: Literario  
To: NYGen  
Subject: Re: Regret

Actually I know exactly what you mean. I can be quite combative, when it’s deserved. The greatest gift we have on this earth is our expression, our ability to communicate with another how we feel. When I don’t, I feel the words fester inside of me for days afterwards, almost as though they are eating me up inside. Recently, a real piece of shit – pardon my language – belittled my existence and I didn’t really get the chance to respond. It kept me up all night, the knowledge that they walked away thinking they had won. 

* * *

From: NYGen  
To: Literario  
Subject: Re:Re:Regret 

It sounds like you can hold your own in an argument. I imagine you are extremely eloquent and elegant about it, whereas I tend to have the air of someone who just ate a lemon. 

Unfortunately, as you may understand, sometimes when you express yourself with such ferocity, it can only be followed with Remorse, with a capital R. 

* * *

From: NYGen  
To: Literario Subject: Re:Re:Re:Regret

Do you think we should meet?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Joe’s username is a reference to [this ](https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/autobiographia-literaria)Frank O’Hara poem, which reminds me of this iteration of Joe a lot.
> 
> The poem Joe references in his email is Reborn (also known as Rebirth) by Forugh Farrokzhad. As this poem has been translated into English, and various translations exist, the version I used came from [ this translation ](http://poemsintranslation.blogspot.com/2010/02/forugh-farrokhzad-rebirth-from-persian.html) of Farough's poetry, which I like the best. This version is also published in Sin, the anthology of Farrokzhad's poetry translated by Sholeh Wolpé, which is where I found it.


	2. winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has left feedback on this. It's been super exciting to be able to share it with you all! Hope you like part 2! 
> 
> A note about Joe: because Yusuf as a character does not have a canonically specific place or origin in the Old Guard comics or film, I decided to use Marwan Kenzari as a guide and place Yusuf’s family from Tunisia. I’ve also written Yusuf/Joe here as a practicing Muslim, albeit not _always_ practicing, as it felt like it fit with the character I was writing. Intentionally, he never explicitly eats pork or drinks alcohol. However, if any part of Yusuf’s characterization is off or worse, offensive or inaccurate, please, please do come yell at me and I will do my best to fix it.

Nicky is well aware he’s made several critical misjudgements during his lifetime, and that when he dies he expects to have to answer for many of them. But as he walks into Zabar’s the day before Thanksgiving, he’s concerned that his reckoning has come early. A last minute re-arrangement, or re-negotiation rather, between Booker and Sophie meant that Isabelle and Jean-Pierre would be spending the holiday with their father, and thus with Nicky. And while Nicky has no particular attachment to Thanksgiving as a concept, nor as a meal, Booker’s American-born children have developed an unfortunate vested interest in both.

As much as Nicky hates to disappoint them, he does seriously consider it when he sees the crowd inside the store. Grabbing a shopping cart from the corner, he moves straight towards the deli section, figuring he needs to be strategic about this, especially if he doesn’t want to spend his entire afternoon here.

A customer takes their order from the deli guy and steps back, revealing the other person waiting and Nicky’s regret instantly triples as his gaze lands on Joe al-Kaysani choosing between two kinds of feta cheese.

Nicky swerves left and into the nearest aisle, swearing under his breath. He spends the next 15 minutes carefully avoiding Joe throughout the store like he's playing Pac-Man. A voice in his head reminds him that he is being _ridiculous_ , that he is a grown man who has looked down the barrel of many uncomfortable situations. He’s known for not flinching in business negotiations, can stare down any executive who thinks he knows better than him, can outsmart people in both English and Italian, and even passably in French. 

And yet, the prospect of having another interaction with Joe al-Kaysani makes him nauseous.

It had only been three weeks since the event at Copley’s and this is the fourth time Nicky has run into Joe. Well, run into would imply that Nicky did not duck out of the way each time like a frightened mouse. Joe seems to frequent quite a few of the same places that Nicky does, so much so that Nicky wonders how many times they had crossed paths before they were even known to each other. Though truthfully, he can’t even imagine not noticing Joe in a crowd. The man seems to have a spotlight shining on him, the way Nicky’s eyes are drawn to him. 

Joe seems to be buying provisions as well. Nicky watches him pick through produce with a discerning eye, before tossing up between two different types of bread loaves, and eventually taking both. He seems to read food labels more than most. He wonders what kind of cook he is, whether he enjoys cooking, whether he insists on doing all the work himself. Nicky wonders if he’s cooking for himself or for someone else. 

He’s found everything he needs, but the queues for each cashier reach out into the middle of the store and he’s worried that Joe will spot him if he lines up too early, so he weaves through the aisles some more, and spends a little too long with his head buried in a National Geographic. Finally, he sees Joe line up to pay and waits a little while longer before moving to a different queue, reassured that the store is too busy for Joe to see him from there.

The line takes a while, and he only allows himself to look over at Joe once, perhaps twice, as they both crawl towards the exit. When Nicky finally gets to his turn he smiles absently at the cashier, who barely responds as she scans through his items. She rings up his total and he hands his card over to her. Except, instead of taking the card, she looks at it, and then at him.

“This is a cash-only line,” she says, as though Nicky has just offended her grandmother. Perhaps this was worse.

“What?” Nicky pales.

“Cash only,” she repeats and points up. Nicky follows her finger, and indeed there is a rather large Cash Only sign hanging above their heads.

“I’m so sorry,” he starts, pulling his wallet back out of his pocket, “I didn’t realize -” He fumbles through it. How does he not have any cash? He always carries cash. “I just have the card. Is there any chance you could make an exception?”

The cashier looks like there’s about as much of a chance of that as there is of the small turkey he’d just purchased coming to life.

“You have no cash?” The man behind him says then, loudly annoyed, then turns back to the customer behind him, “He has no cash.”

“Get in another line then,” someone else says. Nicky feels his cheeks going red.

“I have 2 dollars,” Nicky says weakly, brandishing them from his wallet. He also has a dime, but somehow he doesn’t think this would help his case. “Isn’t there anything you can do?”

“Hello,” a voice says next to him, smooth and rich and overly close. Nicky feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

“Hello,” he responds.

“Do you need some money?” Joe asks, and Nicky can hear the smirk on his lips, even though he resolutely refuses to look at him.

“No, I do not need any money, thank you.”

“Sir, you’re going to have to pick another line,” the cashier tells him.

Joe takes a step closer, his chest brushes against Nicky’s shoulder as he leans forward. Nicky allows himself to look over then. Joe’s holding a paper bag to his side, head cocked and gaze thoughtful. He’s wearing a patterned sweater under his long coat, his hair seems a little longer, a little bushier than the last time they’d spoken.

“Hi, Rosa,” Joe says, eyes dipping to check her name badge. “You have a lovely name, Rosa. This is Nicky, I’m Joe.”

“And I’m Henry,” the man behind Nicky says, still loud, still annoyed.

Nicky feels an urge to simply disappear into the ground, but Joe doesn’t look put out at all. “Nice to meet you Henry. Happy Holidays!” He says, leaning over Nicky to smile at him. He smells like cologne, nothing that Nicky recognises but it’s nice, something with bergamot maybe. Joe turns back to Rosa and points to the black device near her left hand.

“I believe this is a credit card machine.”

Rosa stares at him blankly, and Joe reaches out and grabs Nicky’s credit card from his hand. “And this is a credit card. And _this_ ,” Joe points the card towards Nicky, “is a poor man who feels very badly that he didn’t read your sign.”

Nicky takes his cue and nods. “I -”

“You’d be doing me a favor,” Joe smiles then, and it’s for Rosa, Nicky knows it’s for Rosa but he feels a pull in his chest regardless. Nicky watches as Rosa’s face softens and she takes the credit card from Joe’s hand.

“Rosa,” Joe says and Nicky swears that she blushes. “You’ve truly saved Thanksgiving.”

Joe turns to Nicky, who immediately looks down so he doesn’t have to meet his gaze. “So you’re fine?”

“Yes,” Nicky says weakly.

“Well, okay then. Happy Thanksgiving,” Joe grins, and leans over him again. With their closeness, Nicky notes that Joe is just an inch taller than him, but he crowds over him as though he’s making a point. “Henry, Happy Thanksgiving.”

And then suddenly he’s gone, and Nicky’s shoulder feels cold, and he turns back to Henry. “I really am sorr-”

“So sign already!” Henry says and points to Rosa, who’s holding out the receipt and a pen, expression somehow more sour than before Joe had joined them. Nicky takes both and signs his name.

“I’d like to get home in time for the parade.” Someone else in line snipes, as he hands it back for Rosa to check.

Nicky just nods now, willing to do anything, sell his kidney even, if it would get him out of the store faster. By the time Rosa hands him back his card, he’s about ready to run out of there, groceries clutched to his chest.

When he gets outside to the cold November chill, he’s half expecting Joe to be waiting for him, to chew him out again, to taunt him for needing his help. But instead Joe is simply gone and Nicky just stands there on the sidewalk for a moment, looking up and down Broadway, as though he’s forgotten the way home. 

* * *

* * *

From: Literario  
To: NYGen  
Subject: Holidays

I’m sure you’re getting ready for the holidays. My mother always loved this time of year, not because of the holiday itself, but because of the energy in the air. She’d look at the crowds rushing across the city, the traffic backing up over the bridge, the holiday sales, and all she would see is people aching to be with their loved ones, as though they’d fall apart without them. 

I’m not sure whether I always see the same thing, though I wish I did. I love the way she viewed the world. If there was good to be found, she’d find it and cherish it for what it was. But either way, no matter what you celebrate, or don’t celebrate, I do believe there’s always a good reason to decorate the world with twinkle lights. 

* * *

From: NYGen  
To: Literario  
Subject: Re:Holidays

I’m Catholic. Well, I’m supposed to be. To be completely honest, I’ve been relying on Christmas mass for years to carry me through. That’s a lot of pressure for two short hours once a year.

Your mother sounds like she was a lovely person. I’ll try to remember her the next time someone walks straight into me on the street and curses at me like it was my fault. Or perhaps during Christmas Day lunch, as my family and I sit in awkward silence, lest someone brings up an uncomfortable topic. 

I’m sounding very petulant, and I apologise. Truthfully, I’ve been feeling a little bit disconnected from the holidays this year. It does, perhaps a little, feel like I could fall apart. But I’m sure I will survive. 

I do hope you have a wonderful time, celebrating whatever you like, and that you’re held together with all the love and twinkle lights you desire and deserve. 

* * *

* * *

Nile is flitting around the store like a panicked hummingbird, wearing her obnoxiously loud Christmas jumper as is tradition on her last day of work before she leaves for Christmas break. Joe’s doodling in his notebook, sketching out little familiarities; Nile’s braids under her beanie, Andy’s hands around a cup of mulled wine. There’s nothing else to do really, the store has been unseasonably empty all week, any hope for a Christmas rush dissipating as quickly as last night’s light snowfall.

He always liked to watch people through the window, golden lettering framing New Yorkers as they walked past, holding hands, holding Christmas trees and presents and well wishes. But he’s been getting a bit sick of the large red GB logos stamped on paper bag after paper bag being carried past his store. He suspects that’s why Nile is hovering. 

“Your mother and brother are going to kill me if you miss your flight,” he says eventually. It’s not that he wants her to leave. The opposite really.

Nile looks over her shoulder at him, smiles in a way that doesn’t meet her eyes. “There’s no reason to worry. I’ve got heaps of time.”

She probably did. Plus she was packed, her suitcase in the backroom of the store, her student accommodation all locked up. She was taking a cab directly to La Guardia.

Still, he raises an eyebrow at her. “There’s no reason for you to be fixing that display right now either.”

He hears Nile sigh, before she puts down the book in her hand, and walks over to the counter, leans her elbows against the dark wood.

“I hate leaving you here by yourself.”

“I’m not-” Joe starts and Nile just rolls her eyes.

“I know, I know, you have Andy.”

He does have Andy. They have plans, on Christmas Day because neither of them celebrate the holiday, Joe because he’s Muslim, and Andy because... well she’s tends to hold a grudge against festivities. It’s a bit of a tradition at this point, the two of them holed up in his apartment, with takeout, watching some decidedly un-Christmassy movie. He has a sneaking suspicion Quỳnh will be joining them this year.

“Promise me you’ll call if anything happens,” Nile says, her brow furrowed slightly, like she was imagining something unpleasant.

He forces a smile, lips tight together, “Nile, I promise the shop will still be standing when you get back.”

She frowns again, bites at her lip, and turns briefly to look out the window. Joe looks down instead, picks up his pencil again and finishes the outline of a figure with short hair and sharp features. He doesn’t bother with the details.

“You need to make sure you look after yourself in January.”

“Hmm?” he looks up at her. 

“If you’re fasting,” Nile says, “It’s going to be cold, I know it’s harder when it’s cold.”

Actually it’s harder when it’s summer, he thinks, with longer days and the heat. But he knows what she means, and he’s touched that she’s thought about it. “You’re very sweet, Nile,” he says, “Now please, head to the airport before I have to fly you to Chicago myself.”

Nile snorts and pushes herself up off the counter, moves around to his side and wraps her arms around him tightly. He leans into the hug, brings his arms around her back.

“I’ll miss you,” she says over his shoulder.

Joe huffs a laugh, “No you won’t. But I’ll miss you.” Nile always forgets how much she loves going home, he thinks. He sees it whenever she comes back to the city. He’s glad for her.

* * *

* * *

Nicky ponders about when his father became such a cliché, whether it happened gradually, or whether Nicky was just too busy to notice. There must be some reason, surely, that neither he nor Booker had stopped him from purchasing this obscenely large holiday house, and then insisting that they spend Christmas here. Whatever his father’s current relationship status with the interior designer, she seems to have taken on this property as well, the walls adorned with expensive art, and the rugs various shades of chartreuse for some reason. 

So here they are, three grown men who had no one better to spend Christmas Day with, stuck in a house in Suburban New York. Surely they’d all expected better for themselves.

He finds Booker standing out on the patio, gazing out over the vast backyard that no one has any reason to use. He’s leant against the railing, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. Two years ago, Nicky would’ve expected it to be spiked with something, but now, he’s glad to not be worried about it. Although he still doesn’t quite understand why Booker insists on being outside at all. It’s not particularly pleasant, in fact, it’s freezing. 

“What time are they arriving tomorrow?” He asks. As part of the negotiation, Sophie got Christmas, and Booker gets the week after. They’ll be back in the city in time for New Year’s and Nicky can’t wait to not be in a place that feels like it exists just to prove a point. 

“Late morning, I think, depending on traffic,” Booker shrugs, though Nicky knows he’s underplaying how excited he is to see them. Nicky can relate. 

He nods, “I’ll cook lunch.”

“You don’t have to-”

“No, it’ll be nice,” he insists, “I’ll make their favorite.”

Booker snorts, “You won’t be exerting yourself then. Their favorite is croque monsieur.”

Nicky laughs, slightly relieved he won’t have to do a reprise of yesterday’s Christmas dinner. He likes cooking, especially for people he loves, but there’s only so many times he can be expected to roast a bird this year.

# ...

That evening, he sits on the bed in the guest room he’s using, ready for bed, but not yet wanting to give himself over to the four poster bed that is still somehow uncomfortable despite how much it had probably cost. Instead, he leans against the headboard, pulls his laptop into his lap. 

From: NYGen  
To: Literario  
Subject: Connecting

I sat at Christmas mass two days ago and I kept thinking of you. I hope God forgives me for not giving him my undivided attention, but I like to think he’d understand. Christmas with my family has been… as expected, sometimes tense, sometimes uncomfortable, and sometimes a blessing, that I am able to spend time with them at all. I get to see my niece and nephew tomorrow, which is yet another blessing.

I haven’t heard from you since your last reply. I hope this means you’re well and enjoying the holidays in whatever way you wish.

* * *

* * *

Andy arrives in the late afternoon, as the twinkle lights Joe’s hung in the window shine bright against the darkening New York skies. He should probably take them down, but honestly he doesn’t want to. The bell above the door announces her arrival, and Joe looks up from where he’d propped his elbows against the counter, reading through a copy of ,em>Leaves of Grass he’s pulled off the shelf. 

“It’s quiet in here,” Andy says. She’s wrapped up in an oversized men’s jacket that she’s been wearing for years, and always makes her look like she’s on the run.

“Nile’s not back until next week,” he replies, closing the book and straightening out his back. There’s been a pain there in his shoulder for the past few days that he can’t shake. He meets Andy’s gaze and they stand in the silence for a minute, both acutely aware that’s not what she meant.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Andy asks finally. 

“Andy.”

She sighs, frustrated, as she pulls off her jacket and drapes it over the counter, resting an elbow on it. “You know I love her too, Joe, but you can’t afford to keep paying her.”

Joe frowns, swallows against his dry mouth, before he answers. “I can still reduce my own cut.”

“Joe, come on,” Andy shakes her head. “You’ve got rent to pay. And bills.”

He’s been thinking about that actually, as much as he loves his apartment, and he does truly, he’s paying extra for the location, for the convenience of being close to the store. If he found a smaller place, maybe up in Morningside Heights, or even Harlem, he’d be able to save more money, take in less from the store for himself. It would be a shame to move from his home, he’s been there for years, loves the way the light shines in the windows in the morning, loves the kitchen that somehow has enough space despite being tiny. It’s small, and imperfect, and the elevator is broken more often than it’s not, but it’s home.

Still, he’d move if he had to. 

He doesn’t tell Andy that. “I didn’t know you were coming in today,” He says instead, hoping to shift the conversation somewhere else.

Andy grins then, glint in her eye as she reaches into the pocket of her jacket before pausing. “How much longer until sundown?”

Joe checks his watch, 4:32, and then takes a few steps towards the window to look out into the sky. “15 minutes, maybe less.” He says, and turns back to Andy “Why?”

“I know it can be hard to break fast while the store is still open,” Andy says gently. This is true, yesterday he’d waited until he got home, and the day before he ended up closing the store for 10 minutes after the sun fully set so that he could go into the back room for some water and to pray. “So I thought we could do it together, and I can watch the store, if you want.”

Joe smiles, heart warm as Andy pulls out a small paper bag from her jacket pocket, she opens it and holds it out to him so he can look inside. There are two pieces of baklava in there.

“Date and pistachio,” She smiles, clearly having chosen that on purpose.

“Thank you, that would be nice,” Joe says and Andy closes up the bag and puts it back in her pocket for now.

“You know that means we have 15 more minutes to talk about what we’re going to do about the store.”

* * *

Barely a couple of hours later, Joe is unlocking his door. He hangs up his coat, kicks off his shoes, and heads directly into the kitchen. He fills a glass with water from the tap, drinks it all in one go, fills it up again and drinks about half before he sets it down on the counter. His eyes are closed as he lets the wetness settle into his mouth, feels fairly content as he opens his fridge. A positive of spending most of Ramadan alone, is that what you cook can last you for several nights. He's never found a lot of peace in cooking, though he’s not bad at it. His mother loved it, found a joy in working at something with her hands, sharing it with others. She found art in her meals, the same way he does in words. He pulls out containers of food. Thinking he’ll do the couscous as the lamb stew from last night warms on the stove. There are some pieces of cauliflower, battered, his favorite as a kid, left as well. Soon enough, his small kitchen is enveloped in familiar, warm smells, and Joe remembers tucking himself against his mother’s hip as a small boy, waiting for the food to be ready. 

After he’s eaten, he leaves the rest of his dishes in the sink, allowing himself to believe he’ll wash them later tonight and not forget until the morning. His apartment is quiet, something he usually enjoys, it’s a reprieve from the bustle of his store and conversation and customer service. Now it feels a little suffocating, a reminder that things are not going well, no matter how optimistic he pretends to be to Andy and Nile. The days after Christmas are always quiet, but they’ve usually picked up by now. And usually they’re coming off their busiest month. Joe tries not to think about how much the lamb he’s just eaten had cost. 

He’s got options. He could watch TV, or read. He’s got so many books he’s been meaning to read, and so many that he loves to reread. Instead he finds himself eyeing up his computer. He hasn’t actually opened it in over a week. He wonders if there is anything waiting for him, or if NYGen has also been busy and distracted. He hopes not, he hopes he’s having a much better start to the year than he is. 

He sits down at the desk, presses the power button until the computer screen lights up at him. 

From: Literario  
To: NYGen  
Subject: January

I hope the start of the year has been kind to you. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch, truthfully I’ve been distracted. I’m in the second week of Ramadan, and though the world keeps turning I feel like it always narrows a little bit. This evening I was cooking dinner, missing my mother so much I almost couldn’t breathe. I always miss my mother during Ramadan, but it somehow feels worse this year since I need some advice from her. I need her to make me some tea and tell me that everything in my life will sort itself out. 

He thinks for a moment as he presses send, decides that if he can’t get any answers he can at least make himself some tea, and so he gets up and heads back into the kitchen. He’s running low on tea bags, but he still has a couple, and he drops one into a mug, inhales deeply as he pours boiling water over it and allows the minty steam to waft around him.

From the other end of his apartment , his computer dings loudly, a slightly different tone than usual. Joe heads back to it, mug in hand and sees an Instant Message window on the screen. 

I saw you were online now. NYGen types. What kind of advice do you need? Perhaps I can help? 

_I wish you could help_ , Joe thinks, and then sits down to tell him as much. They’ve never used Instant Messages before, and Joe’s first reaction is that he doesn’t like it. There was something enchanting about sending his messages into the ether, not quite knowing when or where they would be read. Now Joe imagines his penpal sitting at a table, much like himself, typing away at the exact same time. 

If only you could help, Joe types out eventually. 

There’s a pause, and Joe watches, mesmerised as three dots blink across the text box. 

Is it about love?

Joe laughs then, if only to himself. He wants to ask him what his advice about love would be. He wonders whether he’s found it, whether he’s looking. Whether he writes kind and thoughtful notes to anyone else. 

No, my business is in trouble. 

Oh. I know the business world very well, it’s what I do. What’s your business?

Joe’s breath hitches and he imagines for a second telling him the store’s name, imagining him walking through the doors. 

No specifics, remember?  He writes instead. 

Well, without specifics it may be hard to help. But when in doubt, I recommend you go to the mattresses.

What? Joe frowns. Takes a sip of his tea as he waits for the reply. 

It’s from the Godfather. It means you have to go to war.

Joe rolls his eyes. What is it with men and The Godfather?

It takes a minute or so for a reply to come, and Joe worries he’s offended him. Perhaps his favorite film is The Godfather? Joe hates to think it. 

To be completely honest with you, I think it’s overrated. However, if you tell anyone that I will deny it with force.

Joe laughs a little as he reads on.

But despite its flaws, the answer to your issue is that you should go to the mattresses. NYGen continues. You must go to war to save yourself. It’s not personal, it’s business. Remember that any time you feel you are losing your nerve. You once told me that expression was our greatest gift. Use your gift and fight. Fight to the death! 

Joe reads the messages carefully, twice, repeats the words _it’s not personal, it’s business_ in his head. He hates the sentiment, because of course it’s personal, but he understands. No, _really_ , he thinks he gets it.

You’ve just given me an idea, he types hastily, and I have to make a call. Thank you for this, really. He disconnects from the internet before NYGen can even reply, and jumps out of his chair, grabbing his telephone from the wall-mount. 

She may not even answer, he thinks, he never knows where she is, or when she’ll be back, but if he’s lucky he can leave a message and - 

“Hello?” Andy’s voice comes through the receiver. 

“Hi, it’s me,” he says quickly, and doesn’t wait for Andy to respond. “Do you know anyone who could write about us? About the store?”

Andy hums at him, “I’ve tried to tell you for years that you should get some publicity for the store and you always told me that all we need is word of mouth.” 

“Maybe,” Joe laughs a little, this whole thing feeling surreal. “Maybe we need a louder mouth. I’ve, uh, I’ve decided to go to the mattresses.”

Andy laughs now, but not at him. Well, only a little. “Okay.”

“It means –”

“I know what it means, Joe,” she says, “It’s from the Godfather.” She says it like it’s supposed to make sense. “Joe? I need your permission to do what needs to be done.”

When she says it like that Joe knows that there is little Andy wouldn’t stop at to help him, and the idea scares him a little. They’re not the same in that way. But he trusts her, he trusts in her. 

“Yes,” he tells her, “Do it.”

* * *

* * *

“ _“The cold cash cow Genova Books threatens the survival of one of New York’s literary institutions, and a temple to one of the 20_ _th_ _Century’s most profound truths: you are what you read. Save The Shop Around The Corner and you will save your soul.”_ Those are the closing words to James Copley’s article in this week’s Observer. Copley is head of the East Coast based publishing house Copley Publishing, but he recently also became an outspoken advocate for preserving small bookstores. Mr. Copley, tell me about that and what made you write this article.”

“Thank you for having me, Patricia. Actually, I’ve always been an advocate for small bookstores; they are the spirit of what keeps the book industry going. But someone did bring to my attention the struggles that our small bookstores are going through right now, with the invasion of, what I like to call, _Big Book_.”

“Are you kidding me?” Nicky exclaims over the sound of the TV, waving his hand at the screen, “I spoke to this man, he told me to my face that Genova Books would be excellent for his business.”

Booker just scoffs, reaches for the remote and turnes the volume down a little bit. They’re in Booker’s office, sitting on his couch and glaring up at the wall mounted television set that Booker had put in because he had the good, or bad, sense to make his office liveable. It’s bigger than Nicky’s is, just down the hall, but his has a nicer view. Right now, he doesn’t care about either.

Copley is still talking, a smug smile on his face, and he’s definitely flirting with the anchor, who most definitely has not read the article they are talking about. Nicky has. It was overwritten, felt like an exercise in circumlocution. But, he has to admit, he understood the point.

“Thank you for joining us, Mr. Copley.”

“Please call me James.”

“We’ll cross now to Frank Navasky, who is on the ground outside The Shop Around The Corner, the family owned Upper West Side bookstore that is standing up to a book giant.”

Nicky watches as the camera cuts to Frank, who is standing ready outside Joe’s store, microphone in hand, next to Joe al-Kaysani himself, who is bundled up smartly on what’s definitely a cold January morning. His cheeks and nose are tinged pink from the wind, maroon scarfed wrapped around his neck.

“I walked past there this morning,” Booker says, “There was basically a line out the door.”

Indeed, behind Frank and Joe, it appears there’s a stream of people walking into the store and coming out with bags.

“We’re here in front of The Shop Around The Corner, the famous West Side family-owned bookstore, now on the verge of having to close its doors because the European superchain Genova Books has opened only a few hundred feet away, wooing customers with sharp discounts and designer coffee.”

Frank points the microphone at Joe, and Nicky watches as Joe takes a breath and nods. “They have to have discounts and lattes because most of the people who work there have never read a book in their lives.”

To his right Booker laughs. He always could laugh at himself more than Nicky could. _He reads._

“He’s not as charming as he seems on TV,” Nicky mutters.

“You know him?”

Nicky nods, “We’ve met.”

Frank is saying something else to Joe who seems to be nodding, but Nicky is more aware of the way Booker is eyeing him.

“I don’t suppose he’s as attractive as he seems on TV either, right?”

Nicky purses his lips together, before turning his head to look at Booker. He exhales slowly, defeated. “No, he’s really very hot.”

Booker laughs again, and claps Nicky on the shoulder. “Too bad you’re ruining his business then, huh?”

“It’s not personal,” Nicky says, embarrassed. The sentiment now feels weak, lacking integrity, even though when he shared it last week it felt honourable, honest, at least.

“Didn’t they interview you for this as well?”

Nicky hums, and takes the remote from Booker’s hand to turn the volume back up.

“I have met Nicky Di Genova,” Joe is saying, and Nicky chews at his lip, “and he is rude and arrogant, and he believes that because he is rich he can make a game out of _conquering_ the Upper West Side, pillaging our resources and desecrating our community, all so he can build a three storey shrine to his family crest. The Upper West Side is better than that, we have a history that was here long before Genova Books came, and one that will last long after they crumble to the ground.”

Booker whistles, tone low and Nicky shushes him, as Frank continues on. “We’ve also got here the owner of now-closed City Books, who claims that Genova Books was the final nail in her iron coffin.”

The camera pans out to reveal Quỳnh standing next to Joe, she nods politely at Frank, expression on her face serious and stoic. “You know, the book business is already hard and ruthless enough. Their arrival felt like someone had really left me out in the ocean to drown. Genova Books knew exactly what they were doing planting themselves on that corner, and they did it with glee.”

Nicky feels a dull weight in his chest, not sure what to even say anymore. Judging from the silence, Booker doesn’t either. He knew Quỳnh was mad at him, that he’s ostensibly ruined their friendship, firstly by losing contact, and then by allowing her store, once one of his favourite places in the city, to be run into the ground. He remembers back to the conversation with his father, the one that began their expansion into New York. _You should run it, son_ , he’d said, _go back to your old stomping grounds._

On screen, Frank is throwing back to Patricia and she’s introducing Genova Books, and the condensed history of their Italian and French roots, their growth into the European market and their jump across the pond. And the suddenly Nicky’s own face is on screen.

“I sell cheap books,” he watches himself say. Is he really that pale? And gaunt? “So sue me.”

“And that in a nutshell is the Genova Books philosophy,” Patricia concludes.

“Wha-” Nicky splutters, looking at Booker with panic in his eyes. “That’s not all I said! I can’t believe those bastards. I said we were welcoming, that you could sit inside and read for hours. I said we had thousands of titles. I showed them the New York City section. I said we were a piazza! A place in the city where people could mix and mingle and just – just be!”

“A piazza?” 

Nicky groans, dropping his head into his hands. 

* * *

* * *

Nile had left not long ago, taken enough leftovers for several days with her, wrapped her arms tight around Joe in front of his building as he insisted on walking her out. Back upstairs, he and Quỳnh and Andy pick at the final remnants of the dessert that Andy bought, purchased with more love and care than if she had made it herself. _And better tasting too,_ she's jokes. They talk, about books, new and old, and good and bad, and how annoying Frank Navasky had been and the fact that City Books’ old space was becoming a Jamba Juice. 

When they leave, Quỳnh gives him a quick hug before Andy steps in front of him and Joe can’t help but grin, wraps his arms around her and squeezes tight, lifts her feet up off the ground. He feels sated, full of food and warmth and love, and even the looming inevitability of his store collapsing can’t shake his contentment tonight. Then he’s alone, kitchen covered in dishes that he insisted they leave for him to do. He’d already put aside several portions to take to the shelter tomorrow, so the rest of it will be leftovers for himself, for the week. It was good food, Nile had come early to help him cook, the two of them dancing around each other in Joe’s small kitchen as he tried to remember his mother’s recipes. The food ended up being slightly different than what he remembered, but it was good.

He hums a song; a familiar melody to himself as he washes the dishes, sets them out to dry and knows proudly that he’ll appreciate his hard work in the morning. It’s late, and perhaps he should go to bed, but he feels awake, invigorated somehow even though he suspects he would fall asleep as soon as he crawled into bed. He feels like he doesn’t want to waste his contentment on sleep, even if he’s alone, and his mind turns to the person who always brings him comfort, who lights some of his darkest moments. He brushes his teeth, and gets changed into his pajamas and then crawls into bed pulling his computer onto his lap.

There’s no new email from NYGen, but he’s not too concerned about it, Joe hadn’t yet replied to his last message from yesterday, too caught up in preparing tonight’s feast. He rereads the last few he’d received though, NYGen telling him about someone at work who had taken his words out of context, and about a book he’d read recently. he’d gone into great detail about his thoughts on the plot and the writing, as though he was trying to prove he’d actually read it. In his latest one he’d written about how cold he felt walking home the other day, as he people-watched New Yorkers rushing to their own warm homes. It’s an unimportant story on the surface, but Joe feels an urge to walk alongside him, to hear his voice as he makes idle commentary on the world around him, to watch his warm breath vapour in the cold air. Perhaps to warm his cold hands with his own.

Joe bites at his lip, feeling his cheeks grow warm and feels embarrassed even in the solitude of his own bedroom. He remembers an email from months ago, which he had ignored due to bad timing, and conflicted feelings and perhaps, probably, fear. He opens up a new message.

Would you still like to meet me?

* * *

* * *

“And I suppose he’s carrying a book with a flower tucked into it?” Booker jokes, hands shoved into his pockets as they walk through the February chill.

Nicky says nothing, watching the sidewalk in front of him, overly concerned about tripping, overly aware of the butterflies in his stomach.

“Nicky,” Booker whacks him gently on the shoulder, incredulous, “Not really?”

“Really,” Nicky nods, lets himself laugh a little. It does seem like it’s straight out of a bad romance novel. Still, those things usually have happy endings, don’t they?

“So, what is it? Pride and Prejudice?”

“Um, poetry, actually.” He says it like he hadn’t gone directly to the poetry section of Genova Books and memorised the cover.

“What if you don’t find him attractive?” Booker asks. And it’s a fair question, he supposes, but his gut tells him that won’t be a problem.

The butterflies get worse as they get closer to the coffee shop, and as they round the corner Nicky is half convinced that he’s making a big mistake, and half convinced he’s about to be sick on the sidewalk.

“Why am I even compelled to meet him? I’m just ruining a good thing,” he mutters, running a hand across his face, and then through his hair. And now he’s probably messed that up as well. “God, I’m a wreck.”

Booker does the polite, unbrotherly thing, and stays quiet.

“This man,” Nicky starts, “is perhaps the most thoughtful and kind-hearted creature I’ve ever come into contact with. If he turns out to even be as good-looking as a – a shoe, I would be crazy not to turn my whole life around and marry him.”

Booker whistled, low and teasing. “Must be some shoe.”

They’re at the bottom of the steps, steps that lead into the Café Lalo and towards _him_ and he can’t, he just -

He panics. “Can you look?” He asks, pleadingly. “Just go to the window and tell me what you see?”

Booker stares at him for a second, “You are pathetic, you know that, right?”

Nicky just nods, and pushes Booker up the steps, watches as he gets closer to the window. “Do you see him?”

“I don’t even know what I’m looking for,” Booker mutters, as Nicky walks in a circle like a dog chasing his own tail. “There’s a cute guy in here, but... no, sorry, no book. Oh wait. I see a table, there’s a book and a flower. I think it’s a rose?”

If Booker wasn’t doing him a significant favor, by walking him here, and peering through the window, and generally not letting him lose his mind, Nicky’s sure he would start swearing at him to hurry up.

“What does he look like?” Nicky urges, rubbing a thumb and finger against his temples. He doesn’t even want to know, he should have just gone in there himself.

“There’s a person in the way... _Oh_.”

Oh. What does that mean? “Oh what?” Nicky jerks his gaze up to Booker who has taken a step away from the window and is looking down at him with an unreadable expression.

“Well,” he says slowly, “He is attractive.”

Oh. Well, that’s... “That’s good, isn’t it?”

Booker, knocks his heel against the step a couple times, before he walks down to Nicky. “Actually, I would say he looks a little bit like Joe al-Kaysani. ”

Nicky chokes on absolutely nothing. “Joe al-Kaysani from the bookstore?”

Booker nods, closer to Nicky now, though he still can’t make out his expression. “You did say you thought he was hot.”

Nicky just shakes his head. “What does Joe al-Kaysani have to do with this?”

“If you don’t like Joe, you’re not going to like him,” Booker says, gesturing up towards the coffee shop.

Nicky frowns, assumes he looks as absolutely lost as he feels, because Booker just sighs at him.

“Nicky, it _is_ Joe al-Kaysani.”

The nausea comes back like a tidal wave, and Nicky steps back, suddenly struggling with his balance. This cannot possibly be happening. Surely not, surely this is some big prank being played on him.

He doesn’t even realise he’s moving until Booker reaches out and grabs at his lapel, pulling him back.

“I have to – I can’t,” Nicky mutters looking over his shoulder, in the direction they had come from.

“You’re just going to let him wait there?”

Nicky nods, “Yes, I am. That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

Booker frowns, looks briefly over his shoulder, before returning his gaze to Nicky, softer now. “He wrote the letters, the letters that you fell in -”

“I need to go,” Nicky interrupts, looking around frantically for a way out. 

* * *

* * *

He’d come early, expecting to wait, maybe have some tea to settle his nerves, but as the clock ticks over seven pm, Joe feels the knot in his stomach tighten.

By quarter past he’s pressing his nails into his palms, feels his heart in his throat. Every time the door opens he jerks his gaze up, hopeful and impatient. He considers reading the book he’s brought with him, if only to distract himself. He knows it by heart. But then he thinks it won’t be visible from the door, so he repositions it to the corner of the table, spine facing outwards. He takes the rose he’d brought, places it on top of the book, but it begins to roll off, so he tucks the stem under the front cover. It looks a bit squashed now but at least it doesn’t move. Perhaps he shouldn’t have even brought the rose, but he’d written that he would and -

He hears the door open again and a man walks in, tall and light-haired, trench over broad shoulders and when he turns he looks exactly like...

Nicky Di Genova. 

Joe freezes, eyes wide, unsure how he can possibly hide himself when he is sitting in the middle of a busy coffee shop. Suddenly all the hope and excitement feels like embarrassment, he’s here to meet someone he doesn’t even _know_. How can he even begin to explain himself to a man who probably wouldn’t know shame if it hit him in the head? 

He grabs at the book, rose falling on the table, and opens it to a random page, his head down as he pretends to read, praying that Nicky Di Genova will somehow walk right by him.

“Joe al-Kaysani, hello.” And Joe’s prayers sink like stones. “What a coincidence. May I sit?”

Joe lifts his head and sees Nicky looking down at his. His jaw is tightly clenched, like it was last time he’d seen him, at Zabar’s. Perhaps this is retribution for that, when Joe knew he had been too self-satisfied for his own good. Joe opens his mouth to respond, but before he can say anything Nicky takes off his coat, and drapes it over the back of the chair opposite Joe. He sits down, a quirk to his lips, like he knows something Joe doesn’t. Joe frowns.

Nicky reaches out then and with a single finger lifts up the book still sitting open in front of Joe, peers at the cover. Joe feels sudden regret, of all the books he could have chosen, why did he pick this one? It was so sentimental and almost reeked of desperation now. 

“Do you mind?” Joe finally says, finding his words.

“I bet you read this one often. I bet you love how perfectly it describes a whole universe of feelings.”

Joe feels his cheeks getting warm. He’s about to say something else, when a waiter pops up out of nowhere.

“Can I get you anything, sir?”

“No, no!” Joe says quickly, “He’s not staying.”

“Ah, yes, actually. Espresso, decaf,” Nicky smiles, then looks back at Joe, “It’s late.”

“You are not staying,” Joe repeats.

“It seems like you’re waiting for someone. Shall I wait with you until they get here?”

“No need, thank you. And for your information, the poet is Nizar Qabbani and he’s got an extraordinary body of work. Not that you would know anything about it.”

“As a matter of fact, I’ve read his work.”

“Oh. Well, good for you,” Joe says, unwilling to give him even an inch of credit. 

Nicky looks rather pleased with himself, and he continues. “I think you would discover a lot of things if you really knew me.”

Fury is building up in Joe. He can’t stand this man, and his arrogant way of walking through the world as if he owned it. He probably believes that he does. “If I really knew you I know what I would find, instead of a brain, a cash register, instead of a heart, a bottom line.” 

Nicky stares back at him for a moment, “You certainly have a gift for expression. That was a perfect blend of poetry and meanness.”

“ _Meanness_? Let me tell you something about meanness!”

“Don’t misunderstand me. I’m trying to pay you a compliment,” Nicky says, and reaches over and picks up the rose from where it’s laying next to Joe’s cup. “Is this a red rose? Something you read about in a book, no doubt?”

“It’s funny to you. Everything is just a joke to you.”

Behind Nicky the door opens again, but it’s only an elderly couple, holding hands as they peruse the pastries in the cabinet by the front door. Joe can’t help but look disappointed, though he hates even more that Nicky is here to witness it. The waiter arrives and places Nicky’s espresso in front of him.

“Please leave,” Joe says quietly, feeling defeated. “Please, I beg you.” He doesn’t care anymore to not appear capable or dignified, he’d accept embarrassment if it meant he could be alone in his sadness.

Nicky drops the flower but instead of leaving he just takes a sip of his coffee. 

“I don’t know why you insist on torturing me, but you do.”

“I do no such thing.”

“From the very first day when you lied to me, you’ve done nothing but undermine my business and my existence.”  
  
Nicky’s jaw clenches again. Joe’s not sure why he spends so much time looking at it. “I never lied to you.”

“You did too!” Joe scoffs, “You made me think all that bumbling was just _so_ charming.”

“I didn’t lie about anything,” Nicky insists.

“Nicky? _Just call me Nicky_.” Joe reminds him and sure enough there is a look of recognition on Nicky’s face. 

“I didn’t think you would appreciate knowing who I was. I was trying to be sensitive.”

Joe rolls his eyes, “Oh you poor, sensitive multimillionaire. I feel so sorry for you!” He says, allowing the sarcasm to drip into the space between them. 

The door opens again, and this time a man wearing a cowboy hat walks in.

Nicky peers over his shoulder, before turning back to Joe with a raised eyebrow. “I’m going to assume that’s not him either. So who are you waiting for, I wonder. Will you be cruel to him too?”

“No, I will not,” Joe says pointedly. “The man that’s coming here tonight is completely unlike you. He’s kind and observant and considerate. And he’s got the most wonderful sense of humour.”

Nicky’s jaw clenches, again. In fact, Joe’s unsure if it had ever been unclenched. “But. He’s not here.”

Joe pauses. This is true, no matter how much he hates to admit it. “Well... if he’s not, I’m sure he has a good reason,” He starts, putting on a forced smile and decides then and there that if Nicky wants to play a game of who can care less, then Joe is going to play to win. “Because there isn’t a cruel or careless bone in his body. Not that I would expect you to understand. You with your theme-park, multi-level, homogenize-the-world mochaccino land. You pretend that you’re a benefactor bringing _books to the masses_ . And the worst part is you don’t even believe in it. You _know_ it's all garbage and you insist on feeding it to people anyway. But you know what, no one will ever remember you Nicolò Di Genova. And maybe no one will remember me either, but plenty of people remember my mother. And her store made them feel something special. You," he points at him, "Are nothing but a suit.”

There’s a moment of utter silence then, Joe can’t even hear the coffee shop around him for the blood rushing to his ears. And Nicky’s not saying a single thing. 

He takes some bills out and drops them on the table, next to his cup. “I think that’s my cue. Have a good night, Joe.”

Joe opens his mouth but doesn’t say anything else as he watches Nicky grab his coat and walk out of the coffee shop. He feels bad, he supposes, maybe he went too far, allowed his mouth to get the better of him. But no, it was deserved. Surely. 

He orders another cup of tea, to settle his nerves, reads the first 50 pages of his book before he ends up leaving, alone. He throws the rose into the bin outside. He’s feeling a bit heartbroken if he’s honest with himself, without being able to really explain it. Not that he loves this person, but he’d had hope, that maybe he could? 

* * *

* * *

Nicky has meetings all morning, and when he finally manages to get out of the last one and return to his office, he’s devastated to find it’s not empty.

“Please, I don’t have the energy. I barely slept.” It’s a testament to how well he knows his brother that he sees him go through the stages of grief on his face as he decides to abandon whatever teasing or taunting he’d had planned as soon as he sees Nicky’s face. He must look worse than he thought. To be fair, he had barely slept last night.

“How did it go?”

Nicky sighs, “Well, he was insulting and provocative. The only pleasant thing about him was the way his eyes lit up when he talked about the person he was planning to meet.”

“So, what did he say when you told him?”

“Told him what?”

“That you’re – _Nicky_. You didn’t tell him?” Booker looks dismayed, more dismayed that Nicky perhaps expected, but he’s also not about to receive judgement on his relationships from him. 

“The man was furious at my very existence. I couldn’t very well say _by the way, I think we’ve been falling in love via correspondence_.”

“Don’t you think maybe he would’ve felt differently if he knew the truth?”

“Unlikely,” Nicky mutters, thinking back to the biting remarks Joe had thrown at him last night. Even that was an understatement, Joe had basically eviscerated him. “Don’t you have any work to?”

“Not really.”

* * *

* * *

From: Literario  
To: NYGen  
Subject: I missed you

I’ve been thinking about you. Last night I went to meet you and you weren’t there. I wish I knew why. I felt so hopeful and then so foolish. As I waited someone else showed up, someone who has made my professional life a misery. I was so cruel to him. And I’m never cruel, not needlessly, not without reason. And even though I doubt that what I said even mattered to this man, to him I am just a bug to be crushed, there was no excuse. 

Anyway, I so wanted to talk to you. To know you properly. I hope you have a good reason for not being there last night. You don’t seem like the kind of person who would do something like that.

The odd thing about this form of communication is that so often we talk about nothing more than something, and even when I have nothing to say, perhaps especially then, I find myself saving it all for you. All this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings. So thank you.

* * *

* * *

He tries to respond, he does, but every time he stares at the blank screen he sees Joe’s face staring back at him. _Joe’s face as he’s telling him what a terrible human being he is._ He thought he would be mad, and perhaps he was this morning, when he was telling Booker how awful Joe had been. _Joe’s mouth forming around bitter words, chewing on his lip when he couldn’t find them._ How awful and eloquent and passionate. _Joe’s eyes glaring at him, brown and warm and shiny with anger._ But now he feels like a layer of his skin has been peeled away, leaving him raw. _Joe’s curls reflecting the coffee shop lights, the skin of his neck, where it reached the collar of his shirt._

Nicky tries to respond, he does. He starts and deletes half a dozen emails, invents excuses in lieu of apology. He considers not replying at all, considers talking a walk, considers going to confession. In the kitchen, he drinks an entire glass of water in one go, and then pours himself some whiskey. It’s no longer some mystery poet on the other end of his email, it’s Joe. Joe, who implied he didn’t read, who accused him of lacking integrity, likened him to an invader. Joe, who smiled with such charm on their first meeting. Joe, who helped him in the grocery store. Joe, who bares his soul to him unknowingly.

From: NYGen  
To Literario  
Subject: Apology

Dear Friend, I cannot tell you what happened last night, but I beg you from the bottom of my heart to forgive me for what happened. I feel terrible that you found yourself in a situation that caused you additional pain. But I am absolutely sure that whatever you said last night was provoked, even deserved. You were expecting to see someone you trusted, and met the enemy instead. The fault is entirely mine. Someday, I’ll explain everything. Meanwhile, I’m still here, if you’ll have me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The book Joe is reading in store is Walt Whitman's _Leaves of Grass_ and the book of poetry he brings to the coffee shop with his is Nizar Qabbani's _100 Love Letters_ which is *chefs kiss* Romantic AF. You can read some of them [here.](https://definitivethoughts.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/nizar-qabbani-the-greatest-love-poet/)
> 
> Also, a note about dates, in 1997/1998 Ramadan ran from 30th of December 1997 to the 29th of January 1998, and Eid al-Fitr was celebrated on Jan 30th. As mentioned, Joe's primary attachment to the practice is connected to his mother, but he takes it seriously, as do his friends.


	3. spring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The general vibe of this chapter can be summed up with _"…for me this spring was the most painful and the loveliest of my life"_ – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, from “The Right Hand”.

“Have you even heard from him?” Nile asks. She doesn’t even need to specify who she’s talking about anymore, and Joe’s not sure how he feels about _that._

He shrugs his shoulders and remembers too late that he shouldn’t jostle the cake box in his hands.“Not since his apology. To be fair, I haven’t actually replied to him yet.”

“Uh-uh, don’t you dare make excuses for him, Joe. He just left you sitting there! Alone!”

They round the corner, and keep walking. It’s overcast today, but the weather has been getting warmer and Joe feels stuffy in his winter coat. Still, they’re not far. “I wasn’t alone,” He reminds her, “I was graced with the presence of Mr. Di Genova. Being alone would have been more pleasant.”

Nile laughs, and Joe does as well even though he means it seriously. If he’d been alone he would’ve been saved so much embarrassment, but more importantly, he wouldn’t have been goaded into saying all those cruel things.

“Perhaps I was being greedy. Maybe we were just meant to exchange letters and nothing more.”

“Don’t say that.” Nile says, bumping her shoulder into his. Except he doesn’t see it coming, so he stumbles a little.

“Nile, the cake!” But she laughs again and so does he and they both know that Andy won’t care what the cake looks like in the end. They’re on Andy’s street now, and it’s only a couple hundred feet until they’re ringing the buzzer at her building.

It’s Quỳnh who opens the door, her long straight hair falls out of a loose bun as she hugs both of them and then takes the cake box from him. Joe hasn’t been to Andy’s place in years, definitely not since Quỳnh had moved in, but he doesn’t remember that Nile has never been there until he catches her staring, dumbfounded, in the middle of the living room. It is a sight to behold, large and mostly open, walls that aren’t covered in shelves are covered in art. Nile’s sure to get lost in some corner or another.

“Is this a _Rodin_?” She calls out from the corner, and Andy laughs.

“It’s only a little one.”

“Oh my God,” Nile murmurs, moving back to where the rest of them are standing. “I need to sit down.”

“Let’s eat! You can finish exploring later,” Quỳnh comes back in from the kitchen carrying a final serving tray of food from the kitchen towards the dining table. “You’ll probably like what’s on the wall by the bathroom.”

Nile looks at him, eyes wide, as she sits down at the table.

He’s about to sit down too, when he feels a hand on the back of his neck, squeezing gently, and then Andy’s looking at him seriously. “Are you doing okay?”

He frowns, realizing that as much as he would rather not talk about it, they probably would have to talk about it. He considers try to delay it until after lunch at least.

“Wait,” Nile says, looking up at them, scone in one hand, the other dipping her knife into the jam. “You mean all that publicity didn’t help?”

Joe shakes his head, still struggling to make sense of it himself. There had been so much attention, sure, he’d been interviewed for the news twice, there had even been a small protest in front of the Genova Books store. But after the first couple of days, the rush in The Shop Around The Corner had subsided again. Or rather, it turned into a lot of people telling him they supported the store, without actually buying anything from the store.

“Not enough to make a difference,” he says, then he looks back at Andy who is still standing next to him. “What do you think mom would have done?”

Andy pushes him towards the nearest chair, sitting down next to him before she takes a breath and answers. “Joe, your mother would have been fighting as hard as you are now. But she wouldn’t have had all the answers. And she wouldn’t want you to lose your whole life over this.”

Joe knows what she’s saying, and knows she is probably right. Nobody says anything for a moment, and Andy pours them all some tea.

“How long do we have?” Nile asks eventually, looking down at her small china plate.

“A few months, probably. We’ll be lucky if we can stretch it out to the summer.”

“You should stop paying me,” she says then, and looks at Joe.

“Nile, _no_ ,” he says immediately, closing his eyes against the suggestion. “No, no, that’s not an option.”

* * *

* * *

“So you haven’t written him since?” Booker asks suddenly, and Nicky looks at him exasperated. They are about two minutes out from having a very important meeting that could result in a deal worth several million dollars, and he wants to talk about _this_ ? _Now_ ? _Here_ , in their conference room?

“He hasn’t even responded to my last email,” He reminds him. He doesn’t mention that he’s become somewhat compulsive about checking, every morning and every night.

“Mmm,” Booker nods, “Because he thinks that you stood him up.”

“I -” Nicky stops himself, takes a deep breath in and then out. “I really don’t know why you are so invested in this. Before that night you thought the whole thing was foolish.”

“Well yes, but that was before I realized you’d fallen in love with the enemy. Now I believe it’s rather Shakespearean.”

“You don’t even like Shake-” He starts and only belatedly realizes what Booker has said. He feels his cheeks darken. “I am not in love with him!”

Booker laughs at him, as though it's not even worth a response, and then they are saved, miraculously, by his secretary bringing in their guests, though Nicky knows Booker well enough to know this conversation is not over. 

* * *

* * *

From:NYGen  
To: Literario  
Subject: Trapped

I got stuck in the elevator today. My doorman Vinny and my neighbor, and her ferocious bichon frise were with me. I was fine, just annoyed. Actually that’s a lie, when it first happened, the elevator fell half a floor and I was actually quite terrified. We had to sit there for a couple of hours, waiting to be rescued. My neighbor showed us photos of her grandchildren, and then my doorman showed us a photo of his girlfriend that he keeps in his wallet. He said he was going to propose to her when we got out. All I could think about was the fact that I have no photos in my wallet. And all I wanted in the moment was someone to be waiting in my apartment when I got in, just like Vinny’s girlfriend was waiting for him at home. I kept thinking, as soon as I get out of here I’m going to change things; I’m going to make amends, be more open, be a better man. But then of course my apartment was empty and I was tired and hungry. Change is hard I suppose.

* * *

* * *

He’s been feeling exhausted all day, dull ache behind his eyes and a scratchy throat and eventually Nile convinces him to go home. She would lock up, and it’s unlikely he would miss much; they’ve only had one single customer all day. He resists at first, but finally acquiesces and steps outside into the spring sunshine. It’s a beautiful day in New York City and it’s a shame that he truly does want to crawl straight into bed.

He’s not sure what does it, perhaps some masochistic aspect in him is set off, but instead of turning towards home, he walks around the corner, and finds himself standing in front of the large glass doors, giant letters emblazoned in red. The doors open automatically and he steps inside. It’s a perfect temperature, and it’s busy, far busier than it should be for a random Tuesday in March. Joe tries to pretend he’s in a giant library, the type of place he'd fantasize about, but it's ruined by the logo taking up every inch of free space in the store. The lights are bright too, making his head hurt even more. He should just go home. Instead, he steps on an escalator.

He walks through the children’s section, which seems to have every book imaginable, but they’re stacked up on tall shelves, nothing in reach for little kids to look through. It feels, perhaps, like it’s designed more for the parents than their children. On the top floor is the biography section, along with essays, and art books, and finally, poetry. He stands, hands clasped behind his back, head cocked to the side, so he can read the titles on all the spines. It’s a decent selection, though more Western than he’d like.

“Sorry, could you help me? I’m looking for this poem.” A voice says behind him, “I don’t know the name, I just know how it goes… sort of.”

“Oh,” the sales assistant sounds flustered already, “Um, I can try...”

“The part I remember goes like: “You touch me in new, different ways, I become sand-”

“I’m sorry,” the sales assistant interrupts her, “I don’t think I know that one. Maybe -”

“Pat Parker.” Joe says suddenly, turning around. He’d hadn’t expected to get involved, but he'd recognized the poem as soon as the girl had started it.

“What?”

“ _I become sand on a beach washed anew with each wave of you. With each touch of you, I am fresh bread, warm and rising_ ,” He recites.

“Yes that’s the one!” The girl smiles widely, pointing at Joe.

“Who did you say it was?” The assistant looks at him, clearly somewhat relieved he’s there at all.

“Pat Parker,”Joe repeats.

The assistant leaves to go check if they have Pat Parker in stock, before Joe can tell her that he’s just seen a copy on the shelf, and then it’s just Joe and the customer.

“Thank you! My girlfriend read me this poem on our first date, and I really wanted to surprise her with it, but I didn’t want to ask for the name of it and ruin it.”

“That’s very sweet,” Joe grins. He turns behind him and reaches for the copy of Movement in Black he’d seen on the shelf, and hands it to her. Bending down causes the dull ache in his head to get worse, and he really does need to get home, and probably into bed. He excuses himself from the customer, wishing her and her girlfriend all the best, and heads back outside.

It’s not until he's home, closing the door to his apartment that he allows himself to recognize the pull on his heart, the longing of wanting to share poetry with someone like that.

* * *

From: Literario  
To: NYGen  
Subject: Change

People are always telling me change is a good thing. But I think all they are saying is that something you didn’t want to happen at all, has happened, or is happening. 

My store might have to close. I own a store. Did I ever tell you that? I suppose not. It’s a lovely store, it was my mother’s and now mine, and all I see when I look at it is sadness. I hate that, I hate that it’s no longer a source of comfort but an omen of something terrible to come, like a Baby Gap. The truth is, it breaks my heart. I feel as though a part of me is dying, and my mother has died all over again. And no one in the world can fix it.

* * *

* * *

Nicky moves the bag and the bouquet into one hand and takes a breath before pressing the buzzer. He’s not even sure why he’s here, not really, except that he felt some strong urge to come, mixed with some overwhelming guilt about what he’s done. Is doing. 

He still feels unsettled to know that Joe is the person who has changed his life completely over the last year, whose words have greeted him in the mornings and lulled him to sleep at night, that have lit a fire somewhere in his gut, and made his heart flit about like a fish on dry land. It’s even more disconcerting that Joe doesn’t know.

He’d stopped by the store this morning, telling himself he wanted to check in, but knowing that there was much more to it. Nile had told him that Joe wasn’t there, that Joe was at home sick, or rather, the information slipped out and then Nile looked at him like he didn’t deserve to know it. He likes her, Nile, likes knowing Joe has her in his corner. His first thought is that he’ll just come back another day, but then he finds himself asking Nile if they have a cookbook section, flicks through several until he finds what he didn’t even know he was looking for. He pays in cash and drops $10 into the tip jar, smiles at Nile as she glares at him again.

And now he’s here, waiting anxiously for Joe to come through the line.

“Who is it?” He answers finally, his voice sounds distant, and nasally. Nicky is endeared straight away.

“It’s Nicky. Di Genova,” he says, a little awkwardly.

There’s a pause, “What are you doing here?”

That is, Nicky thinks, a great question. One that he doesn’t feel prepared to answer through the intercom. “May I please come up?”

“No,” Joe says, almost too quickly, “I don’t really think that’s a good idea. I have a terrible cold and -” There’s a loud sneeze and Nicky almost flinches, “I’m barely awake right now, I’ve taken medicine and I’m probably contagious so I really don’t -”

As Joe is speaking, someone comes up the steps behind Nicky and unlocks the door. Nicky watches carefully, and when the neighbour holds the door open for Nicky, he graciously accepts. Joe may still be talking as he climbs up the stairs two at a time. When he gets to the door he pauses, and then nods to himself and knocks.

“Joe?”

There’s a moment of silence before he hears some hurried footsteps, “Just a second!” Joe calls out, then more footsteps, then some rustling and what sounds like glassware clinking together. “I’m coming,” Joe yells again, “Just. One -” He opens the door.

Joe’s sick, and well, he does look it. He’s dressed in grey sweatpants and a blue sweatshirt, dark curls look messier than Nicky ever seen them, his nose is red around the end, and there are dark circles under his eyes.

Nicky’s chest tightens a little. “Hello.”

Joe frowns, scratches at his beard. “Hello. What are you doing here?”

“I heard you were sick, and I was worried,” Nick replies earnestly, “And I wanted to make sure that you were okay.” He adds stepping inside the apartment, and taking a look around.

It’s small, but like everything else in Joe’s life, it’s charming. There are photos and sketches on the walls, Nicky wonders whether Joe drew some of those himself, struck suddenly by the realisation that he’s never seen Joe’s art. There are books everywhere. Every corner of this place looks lived in and loved.

“You’re putting me out of business, you know,” Joe says to him, standing in front of him now, in the middle of Joe’s living/dining/entrance area.

“I am,” Nicky says, because it’s not like he can deny it. It’s not like he can even change it now. He feels, for the first time in many years, like a very small cog in a very large machine.

“Are you here to gloat?” Joe asks, arms now folded across his chest.

“No.”

“Offer me a buy me out?”

He shakes his head again,“I would never –”

“No, _I_ would never.” Joe interrupts him suddenly, taking a step closer. “I would never go into business with Genova Books. You think you can just do what you want, showing up places where you weren’t even invited. It’s violent and invasive and - and destructive! ” Joe says emphatically and then immediately his eyes widen and he brings a hand to his mouth. “Oh I don’t mean – No matter what you’ve done to me, there’s no excuse for me saying things like that. But every time I see you -”

“Things like that just fly out of your mouth?” Nicky offers and Joe just nods, like he’s afraid to even continue speaking now. They look at each other like they don’t know the next step of this strange intricate dance.

“I brought you flowers,” Nicky says finally, holding them out to Joe.

“Oh -” Joe actually looks annoyed now, “well, _thank you_ ,” and walks back to the door and opens it, gesturing for Nicky to leave.

Nicky holds up the bag in his hand, “I also brought soup. It needs reheating though.” He turns and moves towards Joe’s kitchen, “You’re not feeling well, you should sit,” he points to the dining chairs, as he passes them.

Joe stares at him, Nicky can feel the weight of his gaze as he enters the kitchen and places both the flowers and the soup on the counter. The kitchen is much like every other part of Joe’s place, more lived in than messy. It’s also home to three half-drunk cups of tea that Joe must’ve tidied away before opening the door.

“Do you have a vase? For the flowers?” Nicky asks.

“Above the refrigerator,” Joe says, sounding either defeated or tired. Perhaps both.

“And a pot, for the soup?” Nicky asks.

“Left of the stove.”

Nicky glances over at Joe, sees Joe has sat himself down in a chair and is just watching him now, before he continues on his mission. He grabs the vase and fills it with water, placing the flowers in it. He leaves it on the counter, figuring Joe would move them where he wanted. He finds a small pot, enough to reheat one serving of soup and then pulls out the Tupperware container he’d brought with him. He places the pot on the stove, and then places the rest of the soup in the fridge, for Joe to have later. If he wants to.

And then his busy work is done, and he has nothing to do but stand there and stir.

Joe stands up from his chair suddenly, moves towards the flowers on the kitchen counter. “These are lovely. Jasmine is my favorite,” he muses, leaning down to smell the flowers. The flowers are nothing special, a small bunch bought from a street stall rather than an actual florist. Nicky’s not sure Joe can even smell anything, but he enjoys watching him, eyes closed as he inhales deeply.

“I know.”

Joe opens his eyes and looks at him then.

“You mentioned it, when I saw you at the -” Nicky lies quickly. Actually Joe had told him months earlier that jasmine flowers were his favorite, and he had filed it away like he did everything else Joe had written him, before he even knew he was doing it.

“At the coffee shop,” Joe finishes, looking embarrassed. “When I acted so -”

“Charming?” Nicky supplies.

“I was not charming.”

“You looked charming,” He smiles, doesn’t look at Joe, just stirs the soup a bit more.

“I was upset, and I was horrible to you.” Joe counters, and well, he’s not wrong exactly.

“I was the horrible one,” Nicky says anyway.

“Well that is true but -” Nicky expects Joe to keep arguing but instead there is silence, and when he looks up again, Joe is standing right there next to him, watching him stir the soup.

“Is that lablabi?” He asks, voice softer, his eyes are almost glistening.

There’s a dish that I used to eat as a child. My mother would make it often, but always when I was ill or upset. It’s called lablabi, this wonderful, warm spicy stew with chickpeas and vegetables. Sometimes I make it for myself, but it’s never quite the same.

“Yes,” Nicky says tentatively.

Joe looks as though he wants to ask about four questions at once. “Where did you find lablabi?” is the one he settles on.

“I, uh, I made it.” Nicky says, and almost can’t bear to look at his face as he receives that particular piece of news. Instead he tries a couple cabinets until he finds the one with the bowls and pulls one out. He pours the soup into the bowl, puts the pot into the sink and gets another spoon, before handing the bowl to Joe who looks as though he is glued to that particular spot.

“Come on,” Nicky urges, and places a hand on Joe’s back to move him towards the table. His whole hand tingles at the contact, even through layers of fabric.

“You made me lablabi,” Joe says finally as he sits down at the table, soup in front of him.

“Careful, it will be hot,” Nicky warns, and sits down in the chair opposite him.

“After I was so awful to you. Twice.” Joe says.

Nicky smiles at this, “It’s alright, I am putting you out of business so you are entitled to hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” Joe says gently, looks Nicky in the eye.

“But you’ll never forgive me.”

Joe doesn’t say anything; instead he dips the spoon into the soup and takes a mouthful. Nicky is too scared to ask him how it tastes, whether it’s good, whether he likes it. He eats it without complaint though, and Nicky is content to just watch him in silence. It’s nice being in Joe’s space, being _with_ Joe, despite the lingering tension between them. He finishes the bowl quickly, and Nicky wonders whether he should have given him more, but they’re still just sitting there, not saying anything so Nicky starts with the first thing that comes to mind.

“I am sorry about your store,” he says, fingers tapping against the wooden table, “You know it wasn’t personal.” _It’s got nothing to do with you_ , he thinks, in fact, if I knew it was you, I never would have signed the contract for the build in the first place. But he can’t say that.

He’s not sure what response he is expecting from Joe, but it’s not him scoffing loudly as he pushes the bowl away from him, hand still holding the spoon.

“I’m so _sick_ of that. All that means is that it wasn’t personal to you. But it is personal to me. It’s personal to a lot of people. I mean, really, whatever else anything is, it should start by being personal!” Joe says, waving the spoon around a little before dropping it into the bowl.

Nicky feels his face heat up and his stomach tighten and his mouth run dry.

“Sorry,” Joe adds after a moment and Nicky wants to tell him he has nothing to be sorry about. “I’m exhausted.” He pushes himself up from the chair and turns in the direction of his bedroom. “Why did you stop by again?”

He doesn’t actually wait to hear an answer, and Nicky stands up to follow him towards the bedroom, “I wanted to be your friend,” he admits. Joe turns back and looks at him softly, so softly that Nicky’s breath hitches.

“Can I ask you something?” He asks, reaching out and pulling back the quilt on Joe’s bed so that Joe can climb in.

Joe gets into bed, coughs a little into his elbow before looking at Nicky. “What?”

“What happened with the guy at the cafe?”

Joe frowns, but it’s sad, not angry this time. And Nicky is reminded he’s responsible for both. “Nothing,” He says, with a sigh.

“But you love him?” Nicky asks slowly, expecting Joe to deny it, to downplay it, to say _whatever_ except –

Joe sighs again, and nods, “Beyond all measure and reason, I think I do.”

Nicky pauses then because it feels like his heart is about to start beating out of his chest. He could spend months and months overthinking his words and Joe just manages to… say things. It really is a gift.

“Well, I think -” Nicky starts.

“You know,” Joe interrupts, “I’m not sure I should be taking romantic advice from a person who -”

Nicky puts his hand on Joe’s mouth to stop him, mostly because he can’t stand to hear what Joe would have said, how he would have so eloquently reminded him that he’s a horrible person, undeserving of love and happiness. “I can see I bring out the worst in you so let me stop you before you say something you’re just going to torture yourself about.”

Joe’s eyes are dark and wide, staring straight into Nicky’s soul. His beard is soft under Nicky’s fingers and his hand aches to feel more of it, of all of him. He moves it slightly, so that’s resting on Joe’s cheek, his eyes not leaving his gaze. Joe’s beard still tickles his palm, but his thumb rests on the smooth skin below his eye. Nicky’s gaze drops to his lips then, and he feels a hand come up to touch his wrist.

“I hope you feel better soon, it would be a shame to miss New York in the Spring,” Nicky says then, offering Joe a small smile before he pulls his hand away.

“Uh, thank you, for the soup,” Joe says, “And the flowers.”

“Take care, Joe,” Nicky nods, stands up from his bed. Joe’s still watching him as he heads back towards the kitchen. He picks up the bowl from the dining table, and takes it into the kitchen where he quickly washes the bowl and the pot, and Joe’s three mugs, leaves them on the rack to dry.

Joe’s asleep, snoring softly, by the time he’s done, and Nicky leaves, allowing himself one last glimpse of him, messy hair, pillow hugged to his chest.

* * *

* * *

When Joe wakes up it’s already dark. He squints, brain trying to catch up with the day’s events, vaguely remembering having company before the company has a face and a name and his hand to Joe’s cheek. He lifts a hand to his lips, touching them softly as he frowns; his mind jumps from memory to memory, trying to land on a single solid feeling about it all.

He grabs a tissue from the nightstand and blows his nose, before getting out of bed slowly, and heading towards the kitchen. He’d done the dishes, before he left. He’d done the dishes and brought him soup and flowers, and... Joe shakes his head, head still aching. He needs water, he thinks, and then his stomach grumbles and perhaps he needs more than water. Soup, there was more soup. He moves to the refrigerator, where there is, indeed, a Tupperware container with leftover soup and Joe pulls it out, grabs the pot that Nicky has used and washed from the rack and places it on the stove. He pours half of the leftover soup in, before considering how hungry he is and pouring it all in, and turning the dial to medium heat.

While it heats, he moves the vase of flowers to his coffee table. It’s just a small bunch of jasmine, likely won’t even last out the week this time of year, but they;re beautiful all the same. Back in the kitchen he stirs the soup, the aroma fills his little kitchen and he feels wrapped up in it like a blanket.

Lablabi. Where on earth had Nicky Di Genova learned to make lablabi? How had he even known about it? It’s an easy dish to make, but even Joe hadn’t made it in months. When the soup is warmed through, he pours it into a bowl, also taken from the rack. He opts to sit on the sofa then, curls his feet under himself as the bowl warms his hand. It’s good lablabi, though doesn’t taste like his mother’s, but he wouldn’t have expected it to. It’s still a familiar taste, feeding his soul as much as his stomach. What he can't understand is why Nicky came over in the first place, not after Joe had been so horrible to him, and well, not after Genova Books was doing so well. It’s not like he needed anything from him.

It’s something his mother would have done, visited someone with soup and flowers, just because. Even thinking about her pulls at Joe’s heart, especially now when he’s sick and feeling sorry for himself. It was her way of showing love, Joe knows. When he’s finished the soup he picks up an old copy of Rilke that had been sitting on his coffee table, one of his mother’s favorites, and crawls back into bed.

* * *

From: Literario  
To: NYGen  
Subject: Unexpected

A couple of days ago, the most unexpected thing happened. A person whom I disagree with on an existential level visited me while I was at home, sick. It was the same person I mentioned that I bumped into at the coffee shop while I was waiting for you. You must think our paths cross often, but it’s honestly not the case, and when it happens it’s usually very unpleasant. Until this time.

His company wasn’t as grating as usual; actually he brought me some comfort. For a moment it was even pleasant. And yet now I am conflicted. I should hate this person, I have good reason to. And now I feel that if our circumstances had been different we could have actually been friends.

I hope you are doing well. I haven’t heard from you as much these past few weeks. I do not mention it to pressure you, just that you know that I miss your thoughtful musings and your dry wit. I do hope you’re busy with something pleasant, and not like me, dealing with confusing signals.

* * *

* * *

Once he spots him it feels as though the whole street narrows to the single spot where he is standing, inspecting a punnet of strawberries. Suddenly Nicky is not at all concerned with the organic sourdough he’s been considering, nor the rest of his shopping list. He’s only concerned, apparently, with the fact that Joe is wearing a backwards cap, dark gray, over his hair, curly tufts poking out from the sides and the top. For a short moment, Nicky thinks it may be his favorite thing that he’s ever seen. Joe purchases the strawberries, places them in a canvas bag swung over his shoulder, and he turns away from Nicky to look at the next stall, selling jams and Nicky can’t bear for the distance between them to grow even further.

“Glad to see you feeling better,” he says, after stepping close enough for Joe to hear him.

Joe turns to him, eyes wide like he wasn’t expecting to see Nicky and doesn’t know what to make of him, both of which are probably true. “Oh, yes. Thank you,” Joe says, then adds quickly, “For the soup.”

“My pleasure.” Nicky braves another step closer to him.

“You actually inspired me.” Joe looks down at the ground before meeting Nicky’s gaze again. “I rarely cook properly for myself, especially not recipes from my childhood. I came here planning to buy some ingredients.” He gestures outwardly towards the marketplace.

Nicky glances at the old man minding the stall they’re currently standing at, thinks that if they stand here any longer they probably will have to buy some jam. “Mind if I join you, while you shop.”

“Sure.” Joe’s lips quirk into a smile and Nicky wills himself not look at them for longer than is appropriate.

Watching Joe move around the market feels like he’s watching a stage show made entirely for him. In the sunlight Joe’s skin looks like he’s glowing and without sunglasses he squints every time he turns towards the light, a soft crinkles form around his eyes and Nicky has to do his best not to reach out and touch them. Nicky follows him around for a bit, as Joe buys some produce and a small bouquet of wildflowers and peruses a stall of second-hand books. Eventually they head back so that Nicky can actually buy the sourdough he’d previously abandoned. They get coffee from a small gourmet cart at one end of the market and end up sitting on a park bench.

“I don’t know how you can drink that,” Nicky says watching Joe take a long gulp of his caramel latte; he may have lived in America for over nearly 15 years, but he is of the firm belief that coffee should not be sweet.

“Pretty easily, it’s delicious.” Joe grins at him, and then his smile softens, like he’s remembered something.

“What?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I just remembered something a friend of mine said, about sugary coffee.” 

Nicky pauses, his own words said back to him. “The friend from the cafe?” Joe cocks his head questioningly and Nicky flushes. “You have a look about you when you talk about him.”

“Am I that obvious?” Joe asks, looks at him carefully, and for a moment he feels like he can’t breathe, like if he even blinks wrong Joe will be able to tell who he really is. But then Joe looks away, down towards his canvas tote, which he digs through until he takes out a small paper bag.

“Cookie?” He offers holding the bag out to Nicky and Nicky recognizes the logo from the market stall. Artisanal biscuits. He would like one, actually, but he doesn’t quite trust himself quite yet, and so he just shakes his head.

“Did you give sugar up for Lent or just your speech?” Joe jokes. In response, Nicky downs the rest of his americano.

“Sorry,” Joe says, before Nicky can even say anything, “I shouldn’t joke about that.” He looks apologetic, eyes wide and earnest and Nicky realizes he is genuinely concerned about offending him.

“It’s fine,” he reassures, but doesn’t quite look at him yet. Instead he focuses his gaze on the children playing with a dog a few feet in front of them. “I haven’t celebrated Lent in years. Probably since I left Italy.”

“I get it,” Joe smiles, and Nicky turns to him then. “It can be hard, carrying on a tradition that feels foreign to you, perhaps especially if you feel it shouldn’t be.”

“You fast for Ramadan, no?”

“Well yes, but that’s more about – My mother cared a lot about it, not necessarily the prayer, though that too, but the celebration, the connection, the charity of it. It makes me feel close to her, when I do it. And maybe yes, also closer to God…”

“You seem very comfortable with your relationship with your God,” Nicky says, even though he does not expect to say it. “I’m a little envious.”

Joe frowns thoughtfully, “I think God would say that’s your first mistake.” But then he grins, and Nicky can’t help but match his smile.

“You know, it was nice to bump into you.”

Joe nods. “Likewise,” he says, and his smile still meets his eyes. Nicky considers it a blessing.

“Would you like to bump into me again?,” he asks after a moment. “Say, next weekend around lunchtime.”

“Sure,” Joe agrees quickly and Nicky’s rushed with a wave of relief. "I know a Turkish place nearby that does some very good falafel."

* * *

* * *

If he lies to himself, he can pretend that he doesn’t know what he's sketching until he's halfway through. But it’s untrue, as untrue as if he said he hadn’t thought about the colour of his eyes or the way his jaw shifted when he broke into a smile.

His current page is filled with Nicky. It’s not a single scene, just small frames, Nicky’s face as looks over his shoulder, Nicky in his kitchen, stirring soup, Nicky’s hands around a bowl, Nicky holding flowers. It was weeks ago now but Joe can’t stop thinking about it, the whole day exists in some sort of dreamstate, hazy with cold medication. But Nicky had come over, he knew that much, he’d placed a hand on Joe’s cheek and looked at his lips.

And then there’s Nicky at the market, the sun reflecting off his hair. This is all much clearer, as though the daylight had brought it all into focus. Nicky politely conversing with the sellers, Nicky’s large hands wrapped around a coffee cup. Nicky asking to meet him again.

He gives in to the urge to draw him, perhaps because then he doesn’t have to unpack what it means.

* * *

* * *

He unlocks his door, belly filled with falafel, heart filled with regret. Joe had been right, the falafel was very good, and yet Nicky could barely pay any attention to it at all. Not when Joe was sitting across from him, eyes squinting in the light before he pulled his sunglasses out of his pocket, mouth grinning before taking a bite. He’d gotten a haircut, curls sitting neater on his head, beard trimmed. Nicky had felt the urge to reach out and touch it, check if it was as soft as before. Instead, he’d played with the straw in his drink, chewed on the end until it was mangled and unusable.

The conversation had been fine, pleasant, both steering clear of the bookstore-sized elephant in the room. Nicky had talked about JP’s sixth birthday party, about transporting a large bunch of helium balloons in a cab, which involved a rather large tip to the driver and several New Yorker’s swearing at him on the street. Joe had laughed loudly, head tilted back, and it was so beautiful Nicky didn’t even want to tell him he’d found it rather traumatic at the time. It wasn’t until Joe mentioned “that friend from the coffee shop,” as he called him, that Nicky felt his chest tighten and not let up.

When Joe spoke about him it was with a glimmer in his eye, voice soft and words kind. It felt overwhelming, to be spoken about with so much affection, and disingenuous that Joe didn’t even know he was doing it. Nicky had thought perhaps it was a good thing, to have Joe get to know him better, but now he feels it’s even worse, continuously lying to him both in his letters and to his face. Despite their growing affinity, he knows Joe’s hatred of him is justified, though now it may have softened into a simple animosity, paired with some simmering resentment. Regardless, it’s nothing to build a relationship out of, or even a friendship.

No, Joe needs to know the truth, and Nicky needs to be able to look him in the eye and know that if nothing else, he’s been honest.

He grabs a glass and pours himself some whiskey, swallows a large gulp and winces a little at the burn. Sitting down in front of his laptop, he swills the rest gently around the glass before downing it all. 

From: NYGen  
To: Literario  
Subject: A confession.

I have something to confess to you and I am terrified that you will never speak to me again. It’s this fear that has caused me to not share this with you sooner. But the pain of losing you would not compare to the knowledge that I have caused you even more harm than I already have.

I know who you are, Joe. I’ve known since I arrived to meet you at the cafe that night, because we are known to each other, because my company is putting your store out of business. I persuaded myself to meet with you anyway, perhaps I was foolish to think that you could have anything in your heart for me except animosity.

I know you will find this hard to believe but the man in these letters and Nicolò Di Genova are one in the same. I should have told you that night; I should have told you a dozen times between then and now. I regret leaving you with the false belief that there is in fact someone better, someone worthy of your love behind these messages. I can only hope that the understanding and affection you have for me here, you could perhaps extend to me in the real world.

If you have any room in your heart for compassion or an explanation, I’d love for us to meet. Properly. Meet me at Riverside Park, by the gardens. 5pm tomorrow?

* * *

* * *

There are 18 hours between when Joe reads that email and when he sees Nicky Di Genova standing in Riverside park, and all of them are clouded by confusion and a mess of conflicting thoughts buzzing around his head. He’d gotten almost no sleep, at first trying, then failing, then reading through every email NYGen had ever sent him.

His first reaction, that this was some kind of cruel joke, slowly made way to the distinct feeling that he’d been made to look a fool, that both Nicky and worse, NYGen had been lying to him. The feeling of betrayal devolved into sheer bewilderment, that this couldn’t possibly be true. All of these have now left a large tangled knot in the pit of his stomach.

He’s still a ways away when Nicky spots him, and they both endure the awkwardness as Joe crosses the space between them.

“You came,” Nicky breathes, and he looks relieved. And terrified. His blue shirt brings out the blue in his eyes, wide and staring at Joe like he’s not quite real.

“I, uh... I needed to see for myself. That it was true,” he replies.

“It’s true,” Nicky says quickly, then goes somber. “Are you awfully disappointed?”

Joe almost laughs, but it gets trapped in his throat. Disappointed? What a loaded term, one that implies he’d had any sort of expectation at all.

“May I speak freely?” Nicky asks then, and Joe just nods, still at a loss for words. Nicky takes a deep breath, exhales slowly. “From the moment we first met I’ve felt a pull towards you, Joe. I didn’t understand it, until I realized that the person I’ve been writing to for months is the same person I -” He pauses, runs a hand through his short hair, rests it on the back of his neck for a moment.

“You know, I’ve been wondering what would have happened if I hadn’t been Genova Books, and you hadn’t been The Shop Around The Corner, and you and I had simply... met. I think I would have asked for your number, immediately. And I wouldn’t have been able to wait even 24 hours before calling and asking you for coffee or dinner or anything...  _ for as long as we both shall live _ . And then you and I would have never been at war in this way. The only thing we would’ve fought about is what to watch on a Saturday night.”

“Who fights about that?” Joe says, his tongue feels heavy in his mouth. He can feel his eyes wet and he’s determined not to blink the tears into existence.

Nicky takes a step closer to Joe, and Joe can’t bear to move his eyes from Nicky’s. He can’t move at all, feet glued to the ground, heart beating heavily. It feels like he’s discovering the lines of his face for the first time, but they are the same lines he’s been sketching for weeks, that he’s been seeing in his dreams.

“Somehow,” he starts, breath a little shaky, unsure where his own sentence is going to end. “I wanted it to be you. The thought was so impossible, I couldn’t even let myself wish it but. But.” His gaze drops to Nicky’s lips warm and pink in the evening light and his jaw is clenched as he listens and they’re _so close_ , all he’d have to do is take a step.

_You and I would have never been at war._

“But?” Nicky asks, his voice low and hopeful. Oh, so hopeful.

Joe closes his eyes, can’t bear to look at his face anymore, He feels tears fall down his cheek.

“What kind of son would I be?” He whispers. “If I let the person, the one who is tearing my mother’s legacy down in front of my very eyes, into my heart.”

“Please don’t cry,” Nicky pleads. He reaches a hand up and wipes away Joe’s tears with a soft thumb and the touch feels like a stab to his chest.

“I’m sorry. I can’t -” Joe rasps, steps back suddenly, turns around without waiting for a reply.

He hears Nicky calling his name, but he doesn’t turn around, doesn’t stop until he gets home and realizes he’s been crying the whole way.

* * *

* * *

The bar is dimly-lit, quiet on a Wednesday night, cozy. There are several couples around him, and Nicky squashes down a brief feeling of resentment at their happiness. The location wasn’t his choice, but he was not in the position really to negotiate. He takes a sip of his drink, a glass of red wine. He’s waiting, because he’s early, because he’s nervous, because he feels hopeless.

Suddenly there’s a hand on his shoulder and he turns. Quỳnh smiles at him tentatively, and there’s a whole canyon of history between them, as neither are quite sure what to do next. Eventually she leans forward, wraps both her arms around his neck and he leans into it, grateful, relieved as he squeezes around her middle.

“Thank you for meeting me,” he says, as she sits herself down onto the stool across from him.

“I can’t say I expected your call Nicolò,” she says pointedly. She’s the only one, other than his late grandparents that ever called him Nicolò without admonishment.

“Quỳnh. I-” He starts but she raises a hand to stop him.

“Nicky, there is really nothing you can say about it that would help, so I’d honestly rather you didn’t even try. However, I have missed you, as a friend. I still don’t really understand what happened. It’s like you just disappeared off the face of the earth. But first, I _would_ like some of what you’re having, where’s the waiter?”

He waits as she flags down the waiter and orders a glass for herself, and then turns back to him with an open expression, ready and waiting for him to explain himself. He has to try, he owes her that much.

“I think I... got caught up in everything I thought my father needed me to do,” He says slowly. “So much so that I lost sight of what I wanted for myself. And when who I was becoming didn’t match up with who I wanted to be, I just felt ashamed. I thought losing a friend was the price I was paying for my fortunes. I think I only recently understood that it was something I’d done to myself.”

She looks at him with a sympathetic smile. “You’re speaking in the past tense. Have you figured out what you want then?”

Nicky huffs out a laugh, “No, I think I’ve managed to tangle myself into an even bigger mess.”

“Sounds ominous.”

“And Joe is in the middle of it,” he says without thinking. Of course, he’d planned to bring up Joe, but not this quickly.

Quỳnh furrows her brow, “Andy’s Joe?” She looks confused and Nicky can’t blame her.

Nicky tells her, then, about the chat room, and the emails, about Copley’s and Zabar’s and the book of poetry with the flower tucked into it. He tells her about the lablabi and about how he doesn’t care about discounts and about Joe. About Joe and his laugh and the way he speaks with his eyebrows and his passion and his poetry. It feels like confession, perhaps more so than actual confession has ever felt like.

And after everything he tells her about Riverside Park, about the way his eyes shone bright with tears before he walked away.

Quỳnh puts a hand over Nicky’s on the table, looks at him with sad eyes. “Nicky… did you expect any different?”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t. I mean-”

“You can’t have forgotten your role in his current situation.”

“No, I haven’t, I just…” He sighs, “I wish I could fix it.”

She takes a sip of her wine before placing it back down on the table and looks at him seriously. “You may not be able to. Joe is... proud, of his family, of the store. He’d protect it with his life if he needed to. You’re a threat to that, no matter how he feels about you.”

Nicky pauses, gnaws at his lips as a thought appears, barely formed, in his head. “And if I were to remove the threat?”

Quỳnh furrows her brow for a second and then laughs. “Then the Catholic Church will have found themselves another miracle-worker.”

He laughs along with her, but can’t ignore the idea, now worming its way into his chest. Maybe he _can_ make this right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the last chapter that really follows the original You've Got Mail storyline closely and the fourth chapter will branch off a little in order to close the story in a new and hopefully enjoyable way. I've watched You’ve Got Mail many many times in my life, and again three (3) times as I was writing this story, and for me it really does boil down to a story of a) gentrification and b) a very condescending man gaslighting a woman into falling in love with him, whilst also directly causing her to lose her job/business. So, my goal was to keep the essence of the story whilst possibly maybe correcting for some... of... that. The movie still does slap though. 
> 
> The poem Joe recites in Genova Books is [_"I Have"_ by Pat Parker. ](https://zocalopoets.com/2013/06/29/loving-the-ladies-the-poems-of-pat-parker/)
> 
> [Lablabi ](https://www.196flavors.com/tunisia-lablabi/#comments) is a Tunisian Chickpea stew.
> 
> The book Joe picks up in his living room is a _old_ anthology of Rainier Maria Rilke poem, which is available online [here](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Poems_of_Rainer_Maria_Rilke_\(1918\)).


	4. summer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you know and love the You've Got Mail story, this is where I make some changes in hopes of steering away from some of the themes I don't _love_ in the film. And also to bring in some Old Guard canon into the mix. But at the end of the day this is still a rom-com so that may give you some indication where this is all going :)
> 
> [Me and my fun little collage image I made for this story can be found on tumblr here.](https://whataboutateakettle.tumblr.com/post/634911662009352192/whataboutateakettle-whataboutateakettle-so-long)

Joe groans, throws his book to the other side of the sofa and covers his face with his hands. He's been feeling disoriented for days, torn apart at the seams, and not even O'Hara or Garcia can make him feel better. He's been trying to focus on _doing_ things: reading, drawing, minding the store, cooking himself proper meals but no matter what he busies himself with his thoughts drift back to Nicky, to the fact that every small piece of information he'd tucked carefully into the back of his mind is actually about _him_.

He gives up on the book, and decides to go for a walk. If he can't distract himself then surely the city can. It's early evening too, rush hour for many. The streets will be packed, all loud noises and hot summer air.

Instead the streets offer nothing more than a series of cruel and taunting reminders. He walks past Zabar's, and remembers bumping into Nicky just before Thanksgiving. He'd laughed the next day, regaling the store to Andy and Nile, felt pleased at how uncomfortable Nicky had looked. The memory forms a pit in his stomach. He walks all the way down to Verdi Square, which NYGen - _Nicky_ had often mentioned in his emails as being on his walk to work. Another pit. He walks down to the Lincoln Centre, then turns and goes up Amsterdam until he reaches Café Lalo. Standing across the road, Joe can see inside, at the tables taken up by chatting unassuming customers.

He'd always been so sure that if he were to meet NYGen he would recognize him immediately; that it would be clear as day, to his soul, that _this_ is it. And yet, there he'd been, sitting right in front of him, at a time and place they had agreed to meet, and Joe had rejected the notion entirely.

By the time he gets home, he feels even heavier than he did when he left, but at least he's also exhausted and he draws the curtains and allows himself to tumble into bed before the sun has even finished setting.

* * *

* * *

Nicky’s been staring at these pages for hours, so much so that words are starting to blend together into some sort of gibberish, but he knows he needs this to be perfect. Every t must be crossed, every i dotted, every loophole closed tight.

So perhaps he should not be reading it when he’s so close to falling asleep, he reasons, leaving the papers on his desk. In the kitchen he eats an orange over the sink, unable to bother with making any real food for dinner. He takes a shower, or rather, he stands under flowing water for a while, and when he gets out and dries off, he sits down in front of his computer.

There’s no mail from Joe, not that he expected any. It’s been less than a week since Riverside Park. It's unreasonable to expect him to change his mind so quickly. If at all.

Dear Joe, I can’t even begin - 

Dear Joe, I wanted to apologize again, for all the pain I’ve caused you.

Dearest Joe, I wish I’d never accepted my father’s offer to head our New York branch. I wish I’d never started working for Genova Books at all. But I could never regret entering that chat room that day. 

Meeting you was my destiny.

He deletes the email without sending and closes out of the window completely. There’s nothing he can say right now that would help, not until he does something that matters.

* * *

* * *

He loves this time of year, before the summer air turns humid and suffocating. The sun is still shining through the shop window, and he thinks about taking the long way home, just to enjoy the evening. And to avoid sitting in his apartment alone. He’s in the back, gathering his things when he hears the bell above the door.

“Oh, sorry! We’re -” he calls out, leaning out around the wall to tell whoever it is that they’re closed. He always forgets to turn the lock when he flips the sign on the door. Not that he’d actually turn anyone away, he’s not in any position to do so right now. But he never even finishes the sentence, because it’s not a customer standing in the doorway. It’s Nicky. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to speak with you,” He says. He’s dressed more casually than Joe is used to seeing him, in a plain gray t-shirt that stretches across his shoulders and - and he looks nervous.

He hasn’t seen Nicky in weeks, not since he left him standing in Riverside Park. Joe knows it was the right thing to do, because it _has_ to be. Because there no other choice. He’s been replaying that night in his head over and over, wondering if that's the last time he’d ever see him. Now, seeing Nicky stand in front of him, Joe almost wishes it was. All he can think about is how _much_ Nicky knows about him, how much of himself he'd given him, and how much Nicky had given him in return.

“I have a proposal for you,” Nicky says, realizing that Joe is waiting for him to continue, and then clarifies, “A business offer.”

Joe frowns, straightens his back a bit as he steps away properly from the wall. “I’ve already told you I’m not letting Genova Books buy me out.”

“ _No_. No, I’m suggesting a… well, a partnership of sorts.” Nicky lifts up the brown leather briefcase he’s brought with him, as though that’s supposed to prove his point. Joe gestures towards the counter, which is about halfway between the two of them anyway.

“This is something I thought could reduce the threat, somewhat.” Nicky lays the case on top of the counter and pulls out a stack of papers, placing them in front of Joe. _The threat?_ He looks at Nicky, not bothering to hide the confused frown on his face, before he looks down to read the papers.

It _looks_ like a contract, the word DRAFT scrawled in red ink and messy handwriting across the top page, but a contract nonetheless. He’s trying to make sense of it, but his eyes pause first at the mention of his own name, Yusuf al-Kaysani. It does something strange to know that Nicky - Nicolò - knows his real name, it’s not something he’s ever shared with him, and not something he shares with most people. His mother called him that, and with the exception of his passport, his business documents and Andy when she’s frustrated with him, that’s where it ended. It’s not the most intimate thing Nicky knows about him, he reminds himself, a line of thought which doesn’t make him feel much better. He reads on, trying to make sense of the context for words like "inventory" and "exclusive rights" and "children’s literature, including poetry and educational titles".

“What is this?”

A hand appears, points at the page in front of Joe, though his eyes are more focused on following the smooth line of where the hand meets the wrist than at the actual words it's pointing to.

“It's a written agreement that we, Genova Books, would not stock any titles aimed at children aged 14 and under. We would also subsidize certain titles in your inventory, mostly educational. You could also use our warehouse, for storage, free of charge,” Nicky says, pauses, as though allowing for Joe to respond, “I know you are not a children’s bookstore, specifically, but children really do love this place, they shouldn’t have to lose it.”

His thoughts are running round his head, tripping over themselves. He looks away from the page and towards Nicky, gaze firm, challenging him. “And what’s in it for you?”

Nicky holds his gaze, swallows visibly. “Well, per the agreement, you would only sell children’s books going forward. But I believe you will find the definition of that to be quite flexible. And of course, it would be public that you were in bed with Genova Books, so to speak.”

They stand there, staring at each other and Joe waits for Nicky to continue, to make some sense, even to admit that this is all some weird joke. But he says nothing and Joe has to crack first, shakes his head away just to escape those bright piercing eyes. “This is ridiculous, we both know this. And aren’t you bound to serve your board? No one in their right mind would ever agree to this.”

Nicky just lifts the corner of his lips, gives him the slightest of smiles. “Don’t worry about the board, I know I can sell them on this. It will be a smart move for the company to support community businesses. Besides, they have something to gain from absorbing back my salary, which is not insignificant. As well as my stake in the company.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Joe feels his jaw drop.

“I would offer my resignation,” Nicky clarifies. Which, yes, Joe got that much.

“You can’t do that.”

“As long as Booker is still there, I can guarantee this contract will be upheld, so you needn’t worry.”

 _"That's not wha_ -” Joe says loudly, takes a breath, “I’m not going to ask you to leave your job for me.”

Nicky takes a moment to look around the store before he looks back at Joe with a soft smile. Joe’s seen it before but could never quite decipher it, except that it makes his eyes look warmer too, sea blue and inviting. “That’s not - Joe, I’m doing this because you care about this place. You _believe_ in it. You belong here, in this store, it's your destiny. I don’t have that kind of faith in Genova Books, I’m not sure if I ever did. This isn’t about me or us or anything like that. I just – I spent so long being part of something that was focused on conquering the market. I want to help give it back.”

Joe stares at him, studies him, eyes wide, for so long that Nicky looks down at the floor, and then takes a step back. Without thinking, Joe reaches out and grabs his wrist, curls his fingers into Nicky’s skin. Nicky looks up, meeting his gaze again and the first and loudest thought in Joe’s head is an urge to kiss him. He swallows it down pointedly, reminds himself of his choice, the right choice.

“Can I think about it?”

* * *

* * *

Booker offers to walk him home, even offers to carry some of his things and Nicky is naive enough to think it’s out of the goodness of his heart. They’d been walking for five minutes at most when Booker clears his throat emphatically. A clear warning for what is to come.

“So, remind me again why you’ve resigned _before_ he’s even accepted your offer?”

Nicky looks up to the sky, bright blue, barely a cloud, and swears under his breath. “It’s not about the offer.”

“I’m just saying… if he doesn’t accept you have no reason to leave.”

This is true, except it’s not, except Nicky has discovered a dozen reasons he should leave and only a quarter of them have anything to do with Joe. “I don’t feel like myself anymore,” Nicky says slowly, realizing he’s never talked about this sort of stuff with Booker before. Joining their father at Genova Books has always felt so inevitable, neither of them really questioned it, or how they felt about it.

Booker doesn’t say anything for a while, a long while, almost a block. It’s so long that if Nicky didn’t see his shadow on the sidewalk, he’d question whether he’d simply disappeared. “I didn’t realise you were unhappy.”

“I don’t think I did either,” he says, “I just assumed this was how I was supposed to feel. Just constantly... outside of myself.” He pauses again and glances over to his brother who is staring at the ground as they walk. “Please don’t think I begrudge you for staying. It’s not like that at all,” he adds quickly.

Booker laughs in response and turns his head to look at Nicky, “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t leave even if you did. Someone needs to stick around and sign on all these incredibly generous deals you’re offering the _local community_. I’ll be like your Inside Man.”

Nicky laughs as well, nods along with the joke even though they both know there won’t be more deals. Not like this one at least.

“You love him, don’t you?”

“I do,” he replies, surprising himself with how much he doesn't even have to think about it. “Even if it doesn’t matter now.”

“Of course it _matters_ ”.

He remembers belatedly that Booker has more experience with love than he did. He’d loved Sophie for years, perhaps he still does in many ways, and he had his children, a love that Nicky has never known in the same way, despite how much he cherished them himself.

“You know,” Booker bumps the side of arm into Nicky’s, “I’m proud of you.”

Nicky raises an eyebrow, “You are?”

And Booker nods, “I am. You’re a lot of things, Nicolò. Patient, thoughtful, meticulous… _Guarded. Stubborn - Ow!”_ Nicky elbows him in the side, and Booker glares at him for a moment before his gaze softens and he continues, “I know how important it is for you to take this leap of faith."

* * *

* * *

Andy hasn’t said anything in a long time. At first, Joe just thinks she’s just reading the papers he’d given her, but he knows Andy, and he knows how fast she reads, and he also knows that for the last several minutes her gaze hasn’t moved from a certain spot on the last page.

“What is it? Is there a problem?” He asks finally. His leg is bouncing nervously, and he’s careful not to bump the table.

They’re at Andy’s place, alone, beautiful art taunting him from her walls. He’s not sure what she told Quýnh, but when he called and asked if they could speak in private, she told him to come over immediately. He takes a sip from the tea she’d given him. Andy doesn’t say anything.

“Andy?” he tries again.

“Joe,” She says slowly, and raises her head slowly with a particular kind of glare she only reserves for when she doesn’t understand something. “Why the _Hell_ is Nicky Di Genova offering you this deal like this?”

“What? _Why?_ ” He knew there would be something wrong with the deal, that something like that doesn’t just -

“ _Why?_ Because the guy who pushed you off the boat has just thrown you the world’s biggest life ring and I can’t find a single reason in this whole stupid contract why he would do that.”

Joe pales a little. He hasn’t exactly told anyone about Nicky, specifically about him being the person he’s been writing to for over a year. At first he couldn’t bear to have that conversation, trying to make sense of it. Actually he’s _still_ trying to make sense of it. But without explaining that, how can he even begin to explain why Nicky is, in fact, offering him this particular life ring.

“He, uh, he said that it would be good for the company’s image, if they show that they are supporting local businesses. I think it’s a publicity thing,” he says carefully, eyes locked onto his tea cup.

“Sounds like a very expensive publicity stunt for them,” Andy deadpans, and keeps staring at Joe until he starts sweating.

* * *

* * *

Nicky’s been in the bath for almost two hours now, so long that the water has cooled completely and his fingers have gone pruney and the only reason he hasn’t gotten out yet is he has nothing else to do. He hasn’t had this much free time in _years_ , and he’s not sure what to do with himself. A rather rude realization that had come from leaving the company is that his social circle mostly consisted of Booker, his niece and nephew, and business meetings organized through his secretary. And while there were things he wants to start doing, now that he has the time, he can't quite get himself to start doing them. Which has led him to taking a long bath in the middle of the afternoon.

He’d brought a book into the bath with him, realizing too late that it was a book Joe had recommended to him, months ago, in an email, before it was _Joe_ doing the recommending. It’s the book he’d purchased in Joe’s store the day they first met in person. He tries to read it, he does. Stares blankly at the words for over an hour, flicking from page to page in hopes that he’d be able to stomach the next poem more easily. It doesn't really work.

He imagines Joe reading it to him, the same way he'd so beautifully quotes poetry in his emails, the same way prose slips off his tongue. He wonders if he'll ever get the chance to hear his voice again.

* * *

* * *

After Andy had looked over the contract, and after she had told him pointedly that she didn’t believe him about why Genova Books was offering him this deal, she also told him that he would be _“a fucking idiot”_ to not take it. So here he is, in Genova Books headquarters, which feels exactly like he’s walking directly into the lion’s den. The receptionist leads him to an office, where the man who’s sitting at the desk is definitely _not_ Nicky.

“Oh I don’t-” Joe starts to tell the receptionist, but she’s already walked off so instead he knocks on the open door and waits until Not-Nicky looks up. “Hello, sorry, I’m looking for Nicky -”

“Oh, you’re Joe. We haven’t officially met,” the man grins and stands up from his desk, waving Joe into the room. He walks all the way over and closes the door behind Joe, before extending his hand. “Sebastien Le Livre, but I go by Booker.”

“Your last name is Le Livre,” Joe asks dumbly, letting Booker shake his hand.

“I was born for the business!”

Booker is grinning at some sort of in-joke, and Joe feels completely out of his depth. “Sorry, is Nicky here?” He asks, looking around the office space as though Nicky would somehow pop up from behind a chair.

“He is not, no. Would you like to sit down?” Booker gestures towards the sofa to the side of his large desk.

“Could you tell me when he’ll be back?” Joe asks instead, perhaps he can come back another time.

“I’m afraid he won’t be. Nicky resigned a few days ago.”

Joe’s gaze snaps back to Booker who is looking at him carefully, like he's not sure how he’d take the news. And fair enough, Joe himself isn’t quite sure how he is taking the news. It hadn’t even been a week since Nicky had made Joe the offer, Joe hadn’t even told him he would take it.

“I don’t understand.”

“The offer is still on the table, of course. Now, more than ever. Nicky left me with very specific instructions.”

“Why would he leave before I took the deal?”

Booker nods, a knowing expression on his face, and steps back towards his desk. “Nicolò left because he wanted more than what this place could give him. He was unhappy. I believe you gave him hope he didn’t have to be. So for that, thank you,” he says as he picks up a thick manila folder and pulls out two copies of the document halfway to show him.

“Here is the whole thing; I trust you’ve looked over the copy that Nicky left with you. These are exactly the same. Although I imagine Andy has called in some good contract lawyers to have a look,” Booker smiles, holding out the folder for Joe to take. Joe doesn’t even have to ask how Booker knows Andy. And she’d already set up a meeting for the next day.

"I've signed both copies already, once you sign them, you can send one back. Please know, I don’t have quite the tender conscience that my brother does. And also I have two children I want to put through college. But I do agree with him on this, and I think this is a good deal.”

Joe nods, clutches the folder between his fingers, tries to think of something to say. Instead he glances around the office once more, spots the framed photos on the bookshelf nearest to him. One is of his children, whom he vaguely recognizes from months ago at his store, the first day he met Nicky in person. The other is of his children _and_ Nicky, who is wearing a loose green T-shirt and cargo shorts. He’s crouching down, an arm slung around each child as he pulls them close to him, the bridge of his nose is pink, slightly sunburnt. The third image is of Booker and Nicky wearing Italian football jerseys, by the looks of it taken during the last World Cup. They’re European, of course they’re football fans, he thinks, ignoring the fact that he himself loves football as well. He spins around on his heels to look curiously at Booker.

“You support Italy?”

Booker glances at the photo behind him, “Ah. Well, France wasn’t playing that year,” he says, sounding as if he’s still a little bitter. “ _And_ I lost a bet. Don’t worry, I won’t be making the same mistake this year. We’re planning on watching the final live, you should join us.”

There’s a strange nonchalance with which Booker invites him, and it’s only then that Joe considers that Booker knows about him, about what had transpired between him and Nicky, though he’s still not sure what to call it.

“It’s in France this year, isn’t it?” Joe hears himself say, “What are you going to do if they strike out again?”

Booker laughs, “You don’t want to know.”

Joe nods, looks down again at the folder in his hands. “And if I, uh, if I want to thank Nicky myself?”

Booker heads back to his desk and quickly scribbles a phone number on a yellow post-it, grinning as he holds it out to Joe, who sticks it carefully to the front of the manila folder. He waits until he gets downstairs, to the lobby, to slip it off the folder and carefully fold it and put it into his wallet.

* * *

* * *

The coffee shop is half empty and mostly quiet, something Nicky relishes as he turns the page of his book, pausing to take a sip of his drink. This is the third day this week he’s just gone out somewhere solely to read, something he hasn’t had a chance to do in months, perhaps even years. The only thing on his to-do list right now was figuring out what to do with the rest of his life. But right now, his tea is satisfying, the book is interesting, he feels content.

“Mind if I join you?” A voice interrupts his peaceful reading, and he looks up to find Joe smiling down at him.

Nicky feels his calm thoughts immediately scatter to the wind as he tries to think of the right words to say to him. The last time they had spoken had been in Joe’s store, when Joe had grabbed his wrist and Nicky decided he couldn’t stay at Genova Books no matter what Joe chose to do. Right now, though, Nicky gestures to the chair opposite him. They’re by the window, and as Joe sits down, sunlight floods his face and he squints against the light.

“Oh, come, sit here,” Nicky says quickly and pulls out the chair next to him. Joe glances up towards the sun for a moment, eyes closed, as if he’s trying to see whether he can deal with it. In the end he moves, sits down just to Nicky’s left, rests his elbow on the table inches away from Nicky’s hand. He reaches over and lifts the cover of Nicky’s book just enough to look at the cover before he lets it fall again. Nicky swallows down the lump in his throat, relieved that he'd decided against trying the poetry book again.

“Sorry, I seem to have forgotten my flower,” he tries, hopes the joke doesn’t fall flat.

Joe laughs, hearty and genuine, leans back a little in his seat. It’s a beautiful sound, Nicky wants to hear it over and over again. He’s trying to figure out what else to say when a waiter appears at their table. Joe quickly orders a mochaccino with a knowing smile, most likely just to rile him up, Nicky can't even bring himself to be bothered about it. Once the waiter is gone Joe looks at him carefully.

“You should have told me you were already planning on leaving,” he says after a heavy pause.

Nicky gnaws at his lip, “I knew it was the right thing to do.”

“Do you know what you’re going to do now?”

Nicky shakes his head, allows himself to smile at the thought. “I was 22 when I graduated university and a month later I started working for my father. It’s the only thing I’ve known for 8 years. Not knowing what comes next makes me feel...”

“Free?” Joe offers.

“More like a rebirth. A new start,” Nicky sips his tea. “There are things I’ve wanted to do, perhaps now I will get the chance. I’d like to go back and study some more. Use it to do some good... And I’ve always wanted-” He catches himself before he finishes his sentence, looks down at his hands.

“Well, now you have to tell me,” Joe pushes gently, grinning at him.

“It’s self-indulgent.

“The best things are.”

Nicky picks up a sugar packet from the bowl on the table, folds the little edge over itself. “I’d like to get a boat.”

Joe laughs. “I can see you on a boat, it’s a good look on you,” he says, eyes twinkling, when he sees him frowning. They both take a moment then, hold each other’s gaze gently, like the other could break or worse, leave.

“I really don’t know how to thank you, Nicky.”

“You don’t have to thank me.” Nicky fiddles again with the sugar packet until Joe reaches out, places his hand over Nicky’s, stilling him.

“I do. I want to. You may have had your own reasons for leaving, but putting together that contract... you didn’t have to do that.”

Nicky doesn’t have to ask how Joe’s store is doing, he’s talked to Booker, he’s talked to Quýnh, he’s walked past the store in the late afternoon to see it teeming with kids during storybook time.

“It was the right thing to do,” he says again, because he doesn't know what else to say, but also because it's true.

“You keep saying that,” Joe says, and Nicky realizes he hasn’t moved his hand yet. “I wish more people knew what a kind man you are. I wish I’d known it earlier.”

“Would things have been different?”

Joe smiles, a soft shy smile. He clears his throat, and pulls his hand away. Nicky's skin feels like it's burning. The waiter arrives then, places a large mug in front of Joe. Joe waits until he leaves before he nudges Nicky’s book on the table.

“So. James Baldwin. Are you enjoying it?”

* * *

* * *

“This is it.” Nicky says proudly, arms flung out towards the water.

Joe laughs. Ever since Nicky had told him a few weeks ago that he’d wanted to buy a boat, he’d been imagining some gold-dipped monstrosity and this was… not at all what he was expecting.

“What?” Nicky, brow furrowing in confusions. He’s cute like this, Joe thinks, and then pushes it down. He feels a little bad for laughing.

“I just… I expected a yacht I guess.”

“Technically, this is a yacht.” Nicky’s brow is still furrowed.

He scrunches his nose, as he looks over at the boat. He really doesn’t know anything about boats. “When you said you wanted to buy a boat, I didn’t expect you to mean a sailboat.”

“What did you expect of me, then?”

“I assumed you wanted to be cruised around in luxury like an Egyptian pharaoh traveling down the Nile.”

Nicky laughs at that, shakes his head. Joe likes making him laugh, he’s discovered. It’s not terribly easy to do, but that makes it infinitely more rewarding, fills Joe with warmth like hot cocoa. “I like sailing. I used to do it as a boy with my father. It always relaxed me, gave me something to focus on. Nothing but me and the water.”

Joe imagines Nicky out on the water, all strong arms and capable hands pulling at levers and ropes as the boat moves across the water. He _really_ doesn’t know anything about boats, but it’s a nice image nonetheless.

“I can’t picture Mr. Genova sailing.”

“You can’t picture him doing anything,” Nicky grins at him.

Joe ignores it, gestures to the boat in front of them. “So, can we go inside? Onboard?”

Nicky hums a yes, “I can’t take it out until it’s registered. But, yes, we can go on.” Nicky jumps across the short gap between the transom and the platform and then holds out a hand to help Joe. He takes it even though it’s incredibly easy to get onboard, the boat barely rocks under the two of them.

It’s a nice boat, even though he has nothing to compare it to. Nicky gestures for him to climb down inside the cabin, and Joe ducks his head before stepping down. The space is small, cozier than he expected Nicky to go for, but it’s nice. There’s a little booth with a table, right next to the smallest kitchenette Joe’s ever seen, and then a padded bench on the other side. At the end there’s a little closet with a closed door, which Joe expects is the toilet. He doesn’t even want to know how that works.

And then under the front of the boat there is a little narrow door frame with a curtain covering it.

“What’s over there?” Joe asks, pointing across the cabin.

“Oh, um, it can be storage,” Nicky says, standing much closer behind him than he’d realized. Nicky's voice falls gently over his shoulder, and Joe wonders how far he’d have to lean back until his back reached his chest. “But there is a mattress in there, so I suppose it can also be a bed… room.”

* * *

They end up sitting on top of the cabin, and watching the sun set over the marina. Nicky had pulled a bag out of a little mini-fridge in the cabin, and laid out a spread of cheese, and fruits, and crackers between them. There’s a breeze coming off the water, but it’s pleasant, brushing the sticky heat off of Joe’s skin. He watches in silence for a bit as Nicky peels a tangerine all in one go, his hands huge around the small fruit, but he’s gentle with it, putting the skin down on the cloth he’d laid out between them. His jaw, mostly smooth, except for a light shadow of stubble, moves as he places a segment into his mouth, chews slowly, swallows it. He turns to Joe and offers him a segment wordlessly. Joe is still staring, likely not hiding it very well.

He clears his throat, takes the fruit from Nicky’s fingers. “I confess, I have to amend my previous prejudice against boats.”

Nicky looks surprised. “I wasn’t aware you had one.”

“Well, I still think things like that,” Joe points over to a 100-foot yacht that is parked several boats away from them “Are monstrous. But this is nice. _This_ is a perfectly acceptable past-time.”

Nicky raises an eyebrow, smiling. “Well, I am certainly glad you approve, I was hoping to take you out when I am able to set sail.”

Joe’s heart flips a little, and he’s not sure whether it’s because of the offer, or the image of Nicky sailing or the quirk of his lips as he says it, but he’s relieved that there’s a spread between them. Because he swears there’s a pull, a magnet, between them and if he were sitting any closer he know he would not be able to resist it.

“I would like that,” Joe replies, gaze dropping down to Nicky’s lips once more.

He offers him another piece of tangerine, and Joe takes it, lets the taste of the fruit in his mouth to distract him.

* * *

* * *

“Let me get this straight. You sat there together, on your boat, watching the sun set, sharing _cheese_ and you didn’t kiss him?” Booker says, recapping exactly what Nicky had just spent the last twenty minutes telling him.

“I-” he starts. Technically, they had shared fruit, but there was also cheese involved.

“Nicolò. Surely you are not this hopeless.”

Nicky clamps his mouth shut, because he just might be. Instead he moves to pull the dough that had finished its second rise out of the basket. It looks good, smells even better, and he chooses to focus on that rather than the fact that Booker is unfortunately, very correct.

“I don’t...” He starts slowly, using the time to transfer the dough to his baking pan and spreading it out with his fingers. “I don’t know how he feels.”

“Have you considered asking him?”

Nicky has actually considered a lot of things, including just grabbing at Joe and kissing him until they can't breathe, but that is not the point.

“Have you considered not talking about this?” Nicky mutters over his shoulder, and presses his fingers into the dough. In the hallway, the buzzer from downstairs rings.

“Can you go let them in please? And don’t be weird!”

Booker leaves after saying he’s never weird, which is simply untrue, and from the kitchen Nicky can hear him buzz their guests up, then open the front door for them. A minute later, there’s a wave of new voices in his apartment and Nicky’s not at all surprised that he can pick Joe’s voice out through all of them.

He places the focaccia in the oven and closes the door.

“That smells nice.”

He spins around on his heels and Joe’s leaning against the door frame, arms crossed against his chest. He’s wearing a light pink linen shirt, which warms his skin even more, makes him look like he’s glowing. Nicky resists the urge to move in closer.

“It’s nice to have the time to cook properly.”

“I seem to remember you cooking me lablabi when you were still gainfully employed,” Joe smiles, eyes crinkling, and then takes the canvas totes off his shoulder, holds it out to him. “I come bearing snacks.”

“You didn’t need to-” Nicky starts, stops himself, knowing it's pointless. Joe just nods at him as though he’s made the right choice. “I should go greet the others. Would you like something to drink?”

Joe laughs, and steps aside to let Nicky exit the kitchen first before following him. “I think Andy’s already found your bar cart.”

* * *

* * *

When the interval starts, after Zidane scores his second goal and Booker cheers loudly, Nicky gets up to take some dishes back into the kitchen. Joe moves to help him but Quýnh puts her hand on his shoulder and pushes him back down, takes the platter that he’d already picked up. Nicky is somewhat torn between wishing Joe had joined him in the kitchen, and being absolutely relieved that he didn’t, so perhaps his heart would not vibrate outside of his chest.

“Nicolò,” Quýnh says, gently when they’re in the kitchen. She’s quiet enough so he’s not concerned about the other’s hearing them. “I didn’t realise it would be so painfully obvious, the way you both orbit around each other.”

Nicky avoids her gaze, focuses on carefully stacking the dishes in the sink. “We’re sitting on opposite ends of the room.”

“And yet he can’t take his eye off you.”

“That’s not -”

It’s not completely untrue. He’d caught Joe looking at him several times throughout the match, each time he’d look back at the screen immediately.

“Then what is it?” Quýnh presses, leaning against the kitchen counter, not even pretending to actually help him around the kitchen. He knows none of these dishes need to be done now, but it gives him something to do, something else to focus on besides thinking about Joe's face, Joe's hands as he'd waved towards the screen after France's first goal.

“Maybe I don’t deserve -”

“Don’t deserve what? Joe? _Love?_ ” Quýnh cuts him off with a hand landing firmly on his shoulder, steely gaze stopping him from looking away. “Nicky, no one _deserves_ love. You grow it, nurture it, watch it blossom together if you're lucky.”

Nicky swallows down a heart-shaped lump in the back of his throat and just nods down at the dishes.

“Hey Nicky, come settle this for us!” Joe’s voice suddenly rings out from the living room. Quýnh looks at him like the conversation isn’t done and Nicky turns off the water and dries his hands on the tea towel that’s hanging off the oven door.

Joe’s grinning at him as soon as he walks back into the room. “Your brother is trying to tell me that France has a better team than Italy.”

Nicky frowns, stands between them and looks from Joe to Booker who is looking back at him with a smirk. “I apologize for this man, Joe, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“I don’t see Italy playing in the finals today,” Booker says waving at the television screen behind Nicky.

Joe makes a horrified face before waving his hands in a similar fashion, though Nicky suddenly finds it incredibly endearing. “France didn’t even qualify the last two world cups! Italy has won three championships!”

Nicky glances around the room, Nile’s curled up in an armchair, sipping her beer and watching them argue like it’s more interesting than the football. On the sofa, where Joe is sitting, Quýnh sits herself down next to Andy and wraps an arm around her waist. Andy wordlessly offers a sip of her drink.

“Two of those were before the war!” Booker exclaims, “Come on Nicolò, don’t let this poor man fight your battles for you.” Booker says the second part in French, raising both eyebrows and Nicky considers, regretfully, that perhaps this is Booker’s truly awful attempt at matchmaking.

“I’ll fight for the truth, I think you’ll find,” Joe responds _in French_ before Nicky can say anything. Both he and Booker both turn to him, staring. To the side, Andy chuckles into her drink.

“You speak French?” Booker asks.

“A bit,” Joe says, suddenly self-conscious, looks away from both of them.

“Don’t be modest, he knows Italian too,” Andy says and Joe absolutely flushes then.

“I didn’t know that,” Nicky says, and sits down, finally, on the seat next to Booker. It’s stupid, a silly thing, one that doesn’t change at all how he actually feels about Joe, but he’s suddenly _tormented_ with the notion of hearing Joe speak in his native tongue, the very concept of Joe reading Italian poetry is burning through his chest. He can feel his cheeks get red.

“It’s starting!” Booker says suddenly, shushing them and turning back to the television as players run back onto the field.

* * *

* * *

France wins and Booker is elated, and Nicky looks mildly annoyed, if only because Booker isn’t. Joe wants to press his lips to the corner of his mouth, where it’s turned downward. Instead, he insists on helping clear up the rest of the dishes and bringing them into the kitchen. Nicky politely offers to make them all dinner, but they’d had so much food during the match that everyone declines in chorus.

As though a decision had been made without him, Nile, Andy and Quýnh all decide to walk back towards Joe and take the subway home from there. They’re standing in Nicky’s doorway, saying their goodbyes, and Nile starts a wave of hugs that ends with Joe’s arms wrapped around Nicky’s shoulders as he grips Joe around the waist and for a moment the rest of the world falls away as Joe is completely enveloped in the the way Nicky feels and smells.

“That was nice,” Nile says, as the four of them walk out onto the street. “I mean, I still think American Football is better.”

Joe laughs. “Well, nobody is perfect,” he replies and Nile shoves at his shoulder gently, and then looks to her other side, at Andy before she speaks again.

“Nicky’s also very nice.”

Joe presses his lips together, looks down at his feet as he walks.

“ _And_ he likes you,” Nile continues.

There it is. Joe doesn’t say anything, but he looks over Nile to meet Andy’s gaze. It turns out to be a signal of admission as Nile raises her hands, “See! You’re not even trying to deny it. I know you like him too, Andy back me up here.”

“I am not getting involved with this,” Andy says, shaking her head. Next to her, Quýnh smiles, grabs at Andy’s hand and swings it as they walk.

Nile rolls her eyes, likely realizing she’ll have to carry this whole operation on her own. “Come on, Joe. You look at him like he hung the moon or something. Like he IS the moon.”

He _knows_ she’s not wrong. How can he deny it, when he’d missed France’s last goal because he was watching Nicky watch the screen, watching the way his lips wrapped around his beer bottle.

“So what’s the problem? You’re not still hung up on the email guy, are you? Because I know that was fun and all, but you haven’t even mentioned him in months, so maybe - _what?_ ” Nile stops suddenly because Joe has stopped walking. So maybe he still hadn’t updated anyone on that particular development. They’re all crowded around him on the sidewalk, and he’s looking at the ground, at the buildings above them, anywhere that isn’t any of them in the eye as he takes a breath.

“Nicky is the email guy,” he says slowly.

“No way,” Nile exclaims, right just as Andy says, “Joe, what the _fuck_?”

“No. Way.” Nile repeats, and then “How long have you known?” followed by “Oh my God, the coffee shop!”

“I didn’t know it was him then, really.” Joe says, trying to remember when exactly he’d found out, in the grand scheme of… everything that had turned his life upside down this year. “It was a few weeks after he brought me soup.”

“I'm sorry, he brought you _soup_?”

He swallows down a laugh then, more in self-preservation than anything else. “Did I not tell you that?”

“Yusuf, I swear to -”Andy starts, and it’s only then he realizes she actually sounds angry. “Is this why he offered you that deal? I knew there was something you weren’t telling me.”

“That’s not why he did it,” Quýnh says then, and they all turn to look at her.

Andy pulls her hand out of Quýnh’s, “You knew about this.”

Quýnh nods, has the good sense to look apologetic. “Nicky reached out to me. I told you that part,” She says to Andy, and lifts a hand to her cheek, before she looks up to Joe. “Nicky told me about it, right after he told you who he was. It was right before he put together the deal, though I had nothing to do with any of that. He just needed a friend.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” Andy mutters, but there's little heat behind it. Joe can’t believe Nicky _did_ tell her, wonders how he spoke out about it, what he said.

“They needed to figure this out by themselves, Andy, you know that,” Quýnh replies, smiling at Joe as she says it. He wants to remind her that very little is, in fact, figured out.

“Okay, so what’s stopping you?” Nile asks, seems to have picked her jaw up off the ground.

“Hmm?”

“You _like_ Nicky. And you like the email guy. If they’re the same person. What’s stopping you?”

Pride. Fear. A small spread of cheese and fruit. He’s spent weeks desperately holding himself back from something without even really knowing why he was doing it. He'd made a choice, surely he couldn’t just…

His eyes find Andy’s, looking at him. She’s not angry anymore, or at least not as angry as she was moments ago. She’s looking at him like she’s looked at him for his whole life, like he might be a fool, but he’s _her_ fool, like she’d back his play every time, no matter what it was.

* * *

From: Literario  
To: NYGen  
Subject: Trust

Apologies for not writing to you for so long. I would try to excuse my behavior but I want to be honest with you as I have always been: I’ve fallen in love with someone. Not just anyone, but someone who has completely pulled the rug out from under me this year. It took me some time to accept the depths of my feelings. He’s been my moon in the darkness, my source of warmth in the cold. He’s fed me tangerine segments, held my hand over rough waters, and nursed me when I was ill. He’s capable of cruelty, and yet kindness like I have never felt. He is all, and he is more than I could ever wish for. I fear I’ve left it too late, but I put my trust in him and in my love for him and hope that it will be enough. In the words of a wise man whom we both admire: “Love is what brought you here. If you trusted love this far, don’t panic now, trust it all the way.” 

My dearest NYGen, Nicolò, my love, I do trust you, all the way. 

When Joe gets home, after three tight long hugs, and several forced promises that he would _talk to him,_ Joe writes the email. Joe sends the email. Joe walks back and forth through his apartment waiting for his laptop to sound with some sort of reply. Surely Nicky would check his emails tonight, Joe thinks, then regrets it. What if he doesn’t check it for days? No, he needs to have this conversation tonight, he can’t go carry on with his week knowing that his heart is simply sitting idly in Nicky’s inbox. Joe considers calling the number on the post-it, stuck carefully on the inside cover of the book on his nightstand and instantly dismisses it. He needs to see him.

First, he decides to get changed, his linen shirt wrinkled from sitting in it most of the day, but then none of his clothes feel fit for purpose, the purpose of telling someone you love them, surely there should be – he’s overthinking it now. He does brush his teeth though, tells himself it will make him feel better, and he struggles not to think about any other potential reason. He splashes water on his face, dries his beard with a towel and regrets the choice as his hair now looks wild and tousled and he can only hope Nicky will find it charming.

Finally he gets himself to leave. It’s starting to get dark outside now, but it’s not that late yet and he grabs his keys and locks the door, runs down the stairs two at a time, and barrels though the door to the street. And stops. 

Stops because Nicky is standing at the bottom of the steps, staring up at him, eyes wide, frantic, hopeful, relieved maybe. Joe’s sure he looks much the same.

“Hi,” Joe says, and takes a single step down. Nicky immediately climbs up half of them, like Joe’s movement had given him permission to come closer.

“Hi,” he replies, “I got your message.”

Joe flushes, heart beating wildly. “I was waiting for your reply.”

“I wanted to give it in person,” Nicky says, and climbs up one more step.

Joe steps down then, and suddenly there’s a single step and barely any distance between them. He’s already slightly taller than Nicky, and the step exaggerates the difference. Joe’s looking down at him, and Nicky’s got his neck craned up to look at Joe, and Joe can see his eyelashes against his cheek when he blinks.

“Nicky,” he says gently, barely hearing his own words, stepping down again so that they’re sharing the same step, finally in the same spot at the same time. “Please. You have to use your words,” he says with a smile, but actually he’s trying not to cry, overwhelmed with feelings.

“Can I kiss you?” Nicky asks then. And Joe nods.

“I wish you would.”

And then Nicky’s hand, warm and large is on the back of his neck pulling him closer and their lips meet and Joe swears he can feel Nicky’s heartbeat in his mouth, or maybe that’s just his own. He moves his hands to grab at whatever part of him he can, ends up gripping at Nicky’s waist, pressing himself closer, as close as he can. He can’t breathe, he doesn’t want to breathe. And then Nicky pulls away, so suddenly that Joe finds himself chasing his lips for a second, before he rocks back onto his heels.

“I want to keep kissing you,” Nicky explains, and Joe nods in agreement, “But I also want to respond to your letter properly, and I can't do both at the same time.”

He means to say something thoughtful, and encouraging. What comes out instead is “Do you want to come upstairs?”

Nicky nods immediately, and presses his lips to Joe’s quickly and firmly before pulling away and dropping his hands from him entirely. Joe feels like his body could simply fall apart now that it was not being held together by his hands.

They climb the stairs quickly, quietly, side by side, though both of them seem to be smiling to themselves like fools. And Nicky waits patiently as Joe unlocks the door and gestures for him to go inside first.

Inside, Nicky takes three steps and turns back to Joe as he turns the lock on his door.

“I -” Nicky starts, and looks at him with such warmth, Joe feels like he’s been staring into his eyes for a thousand years. 

So instead he kisses him again, and when Nicky responds in kind, Joe pushes him gently against the nearest wall. Joe feels electricity run between them in every place they touch.

He pulls away from Nicky’s lips for a moment. “I don’t believe all poetry needs to be spoken with words,” he whispers before he drops his head to press his lips to Nicky’s neck, the exact spot he’s been eyeing yesterday on the boat, and today during the match, and it tastes even better than he imagined. Nicky moans, so low that Joe feels it rather than hears it; it makes the heat in his abdomen curl up like a flame and he lifts his mouth back to Nicky’s. It’s slow and purposeful this time. Nicky responds, sharing himself through his mouth and when they pull apart again, both breathing heavily Nicky smiles at him, a soft thoughtful smile, and cups Joe’s cheek with his hand.

“I was wrong,” he says, “Perhaps I can do both at the same time.”

“Good,” Joe nods, and grins before kissing him again, reluctant to ever stop.

* * *

* * *

Nicky’s glad he’s already somewhat acquainted with Joe’s kitchen, although that does not stop him from accidentally knocking two skillets together with a loud bang. He winces, hoping Joe is a sound enough sleeper to have not heard that.

He’d fallen asleep with Joe’s arm around his chest, his warm body pressed tight to Nicky’s back. When he’d woken up he was lying on his stomach, face buried into Joe’s pillow, but Joe’s arm was still wrapped around him, crossing his back, hand resting on his waist, face pressed into Nicky’s shoulder, breathing softly against his skin. He thinks perhaps they still need to have a conversation, a proper conversation, but also it’s hard to misinterpret this feeling in his chest, the one that's spread out through his body and into his fingertips. 

He’d pulled on his pants when he carefully climbed out of the bed, and picked up Joe’s pink shirt from the night before because his T-shirt was, well, unusable in its current state.

He’s whisking eggs in a bowl when he hears a soft cough behind him and he turns to see Joe leaning against the kitchen wall with his arms crossed, smile playing on his lips.

“Should I get used to you making breakfast?”

Nicky chuckles, continues whisking. “I hope so.”

When he looks back up Joe has moved right in front of him, pulling him closer by his own pink shirt and kissing him. It’s a soft, lazy kiss, unexpectedly intimate. “Good morning,” Joe says, voice low, fixing the collar on the shirt pointlessly. “You look good in this.”

Nicky smiles at him, unwilling to move even an inch away from him. “In your shirt?”

“In my arms.”

Nicky groans, drops his forehead into the crook of Joe’s neck and Joe laughs, delighted until Nicky is laughing as well. He kisses Joe one more time, and then turns back to the food, feeling Joe wrap himself around his back, chin resting on his shoulder. “I woke up in the middle of the night, and you were there in my arms, and I could hear you breathing and I don’t know how I’d ever slept without you before.”

Nicky hums, words strangled in his throat, “How am I supposed to continue cooking when you say things like that?”

Joe chuckles against his ear, and then presses his mouth gently to Nicky’s shoulder. Even through the shirt, Nicky feels the warmth of his lips.

“Is anything about to burn in the next 5 minutes?”

“No.”

“Then perhaps I can persuade you to take a short break,” Joe says, and when Nicky turns his head he’s smiling so widely that Nicky can’t help but press his lips to Joe’s again. Somewhere, somehow, he places the bowl and the whisk down on the counter safely, before wrapping both hands around Joe’s waist.

Somewhere between pressing Nicky against the kitchen counter and licking into his mouth, and actually eating the omelette he eventually cooks for them, Joe remembers that he has to go to work.

He sighs dramatically when he announces it, but Nicky feels like neither of them are about to take that for granted. He offers to do the dishes while Joe gets ready, if only to distract himself from thoughts of Joe in the shower. After he’s done with them, he hastily gets dressed, buttons up the pink shirt properly and assumes that Joe won't mind if he wore it home and washed it later. When Joe comes out of the bathroom, he’s dressed in a blue shirt and slacks that aren’t quite ironed, and his skin is cooler than when he went in.

They leave the apartment together, and stand in front of Joe’s building, because Joe needs to go South and Nicky needs to West and neither of them want to part ways just yet. Nicky kisses him again and he’s fairly sure he can feel his soul rebuilding itself every time he does so.

“Go,” Nicky smiles after he pulls away slowly. Joe’s eyes are still closed from the kiss and he slowly blinks them open to smile at him. “Maybe I can take you out tonight, for coffee, or dinner or… _anything_?”

“Anything,” Joe repeats, nodding. Their eyes meet and it’s as though they are sharing the same thought. "And everything."

_For as long as we both shall live._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be clear, the Old Guard canon mentioned in the notes up top were Booker and Joe bonding over football and Nile taking things into her own hands. 
> 
> The book Nicky is reading in the coffee shop and which Joe later quotes in his email is James Baldwin's _If Beale Street Could Talk_.
> 
> The FIFA World Cup final was held on July 12 1998. France played Brazil and won 3-0. Italy came second in 1994 (losing to Brazil in the penalties). 
> 
> I am assuming it was fairly obvious but not _too_ obvious that I know nothing about the bookstore business, contracts or boats. ~~Lets give it up for the suspension of disbelief?~~
> 
> Thank you everyone for your wonderful comments!! Please let me know what you think of the last chapter. ~~(maybe)~~. ~~(for now).~~


End file.
